


If Found, Please Call

by RedBlazer



Series: There's a Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow (Shining at the End of Every Day) [3]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: An Accidental Abundance of Magical Lube, BDSM, Cockwarming, Collars, Dirty Talk, Discipline, Dom/sub, Edging, Eliot Waugh's Canonically Huge Dick, Gentle Dom Eliot Waugh, Gratuitous use of the Word 'Kitten', M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Pet Names, Pet Play, Prep spells gone awry, Quentin is a Brat, Rope Bondage, Spanking, Spells & Enchantments, Sub Quentin Coldwater, Supportive Eliot Waugh, Tails, Wet & Messy, should be a canonical tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26084518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBlazer/pseuds/RedBlazer
Summary: Because "5 Times Eliot Put Quentin's Collar on + 1 Time Quentin Put It On Himself" is too long of a title.Eliot usually led; Quentin followed. Which, again, really seemed to work out in Quentin's favor. So he’d been expecting to step out of the shower and into some kind of kinky scene where Eliot was waiting all domineering and that was a trip to think about. They’d been talking about this for months. Safewords and kinks. Eliot disappearing for hours at a time into the city for some kind of workshop he’d found at a sex shop in SoHo. He had a certificate. Quentin was pretty sure it was the only time Eliot had taken notes. He’d come back with a stylish leather harness he claimed would be the basis of his entire spring wardrobe. Which was really hot.So knowing this, once again, Quentin had expected to enter the room only to be swept off his feet--However, occasionally Eliot did shit that made no fucking sense.Like when Quentin stepped out of the shower all pink, thinking about the collar Eliot had had made for him and Eliot told him all they were gonna do was put it on him and watch ‘The Devil Wears Prada’.The Bratty!Q Season 1 AU
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: There's a Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow (Shining at the End of Every Day) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1802527
Comments: 67
Kudos: 113





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You should probably read the work before this "The One Where Quentin Gets Turned into a Cat." to understand the context of this story! 
> 
> There are several mentions of pet play throughout the story, however I wouldn't categorize any of the scenes as actual pet play. It's mostly just mentions of how Quentin relates his headspace to when he was turned into a cat in the previous part of this series. Still, heed the tags as I will be adding things along the way!
> 
> Many thanks to Hoko_Onchi as always for her cheerleading, betaing, and being an a general enabler for this fic, which I believe is the filthiest thing I've written to date.

So, Eliot was the more sexually experienced one in their relationship. He just _was._ Which was, you know, _fine_ when Quentin considered the fact that hooking up with more than one person every lunar cycle just sounded _exhausting._ Eliot had done the leg work, that was great. He was _good_ at it--great, really. Like he’d taken an intensive course out in Nevada under isolation and returned as some kind of sexual virtuoso with the way he could play Quentin. There had been somewhat of a sexual learning curve Quentin latched onto. It helped that Eliot was stupidly handsome, funny, and intelligent. He _never_ made Quentin feel like prude for not having experience, _in fact_ Eliot had kind of a _thing_ for showing Quentin the _ropes_ , as it were.

Eliot usually led; Quentin followed. Which, again _ , really _ seemed to work out in Quentin's favor. So he’d been expecting to step out of the shower and into some kind of kinky scene where Eliot was waiting all domineering and  _ that _ was a trip to think about. They’d been talking about this for  _ months.  _ Safewords and kinks. Eliot disappearing for hours at a time into the city for some kind of workshop he’d found at a sex shop in SoHo. He had a  _ certificate.  _ Quentin was pretty sure it was the only time Eliot had taken  _ notes.  _ He’d come back with a stylish leather harness he claimed would be the basis of his entire spring wardrobe.  _ Which was really hot. _

So knowing this, once again, Quentin had expected to enter the room only to be swept off his feet--

However,  _ occasionally _ Eliot did shit that made no fucking sense.

Like when Quentin stepped out of the shower all pink and half hard thinking about the collar Eliot had had  _ made for him _ and Eliot told him all they were gonna do was put it on him and watch  _ ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ _ .

“You’re fucking kidding me.” Quentin shook his head, trying to evoke some semblance of respectability in his towel, dripping water all over Eliot’s shag throw rug. All of the twitchy little feelings of expectation drained out of him like a balloon with a pinhole, leaving him a wrinkly husk. His semi pretty much wilted.  _ That wasn’t sexy. _ Watching a movie with Eliot was  _ nice _ , sure. A lot of the time they missed the second half and nearly knocked Quentin’s laptop off the bed. But getting all tied up it was  _ not. _

“I’m very much  _ not.”  _ Eliot said, holding a long, thin black box in his hands. It kinda looked like the boxes they sold replica wands in at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

“I thought you were gonna,” Quentin looked around the room for some kind of inspiration. He’d had so many  _ thoughts _ about this over the last few weeks, and suddenly  _ everything _ had flown out of his head, “do something else? You want to spend your Friday night watching a  _ movie _ with me?”

Eliot set the box down on the bed. “We’re taking things slow.”

“You want to take things slow  _ now?”  _ Quentin asked, incredulous. “Seriously?”

Eliot nodded, “Yeah. Seriously.”

Quentin walked over and pressed his hand to Eliot’s forehead. No fever.

“Knock it off.” Eliot groused, catching Quentin’s wrist to drop a kiss into the palm of his hand. “I’m trying to do this right. You and I have a quiet evening in, watching a movie--we see how that goes.”

Quentin narrowed his eyes at Eliot, standing between his knees next to the bed. In theory this gave him the high ground. In practice, he sort of  _ always _ felt like Eliot was towering over him. “Well, do I at least get to come?”

“Maybe.” Eliot said imperiously. Quentin’s stomach clenched, heat flared in his cheeks. “If you’re good. Follow your rules.”

Quentin scowled. “Well, I’d be  _ good _ if I knew I got to come from the beginning.”

“Oh, you aren’t gonna make this easy on me.” Eliot sighed, reaching out to take Quentin by the hips. He really did have giant hands. His thumbs easily wrapped around Quentin’s hip bones right there where the towel ended. “Just  _ try.  _ Okay? That’s what you wanted, you wanted to not have to think about stuff, let me be in charge.”

Quentin frowned. “You think I’m gonna freak out.”

“Q, I don’t know if  _ I’m  _ gonna freak out.” Eliot leveled him with a concerned look. Quentin brushed the one rogue curl off his forehead and back into place. Eliot closed his eyes briefly. “This is new for me too. I’m kind of hard and also nervous when I think about it. I don’t want to fuck this up for you, honey. So just--let’s just take it slow.”

“Okay. Fine.” Quentin said. “So what happens now?”

“I go grab us some snacks. While I’m gone, you change into something comfy. I put the collar on you and we see how that goes.” Eliot said. And it really sounded so  _ innocent _ when he said it like that. If you ignored the whole collar part, it would have sounded like a boring night in between a couple.

“And there are rules,  _ apparently?” _

Eliot shook his head fondly. “Yeah--safewords like we talked about before. I think--” Eliot paused and took a deep breath, shoring his posture back up. “You’re going to do what I tell you unless you need to safeword out. You don’t get to come unless I give you permission.” Eliot paused, slipping into a more calm, collected role than Quentin was used to now that he really  _ knew _ Eliot. He was somewhat reminded of the Eliot he first met back in September, so in control and proud of what he’d built over at the Cottage. Quentin remembered the squirmy feeling of being under a microscope whenever Eliot lavished attention onto him. “Oh and you have to call me ‘Professor’.”

“Fuck right off.” Quentin shook his head, pushing Eliot away by the shoulders.

“Alright, that was a test to see if you’d tell me to fuck off. You passed.” Eliot smiled up at Quentin, eyes all bright from the twinkle lights of his bedroom.

“Did you learn that in your sex class?” Quentin shook his head. “You’re such a dick.”

Eliot seemed content to press his whole face to Quentin’s stomach, humming. Quentin’s skin went buzzing like he was suddenly paranoid that Eliot would blow a raspberry on him or something. He squirmed in Eliot’s hold. “Come on. I’m cold.” Quentin complained.

“Alright. Fine. You ready?” Eliot asked, coming back up for air a moment later. Quentin nodded. “Okay, so when I leave, we’re starting. When I’m gone I want you to change into something comfortable. I want you to kneel right here by the bed and wait for me to come back.”

“You want me to kneel by the bed?” Quentin asked, “That’s all? Seriously?”

Eliot looked up at the ceiling imploringly. “Yes, I think it’ll help get you in the right headspace. Do you understand what I’m asking you to do?”

“Yes, put on pajamas and kneel on the floor. Doesn’t seem too difficult.” Quentin shrugged.

Eliot took a deep breath, squared his shoulders. “Then it should be easy, right? I’m not trying to set you up for failure here.”

Quentin nodded. Pajamas. Knees. Carpet. It was that simple. His hair was a little chilly and stuck to his neck with dampness and  _ that _ had to be the reason for the little shiver that went through Quentin when Eliot left the room and made his way downstairs.

This left Quentin in a  _ quandary.  _ He had two options as he saw it. 1) Quentin could put on what  _ he  _ wanted, namely some shapeless old sweatpants and a t-shirt. 2) He could put on what  _ Eliot _ liked most. Which pretty much consisted of something of Eliot’s on top and just his underwear. There was a third option that was just to be naked when Eliot got back, but Eliot had said  _ comfortable _ and the whole naked thing was  _ not it. _

He settled on the sweater and underwear as kind of an olive branch for being kinda bitchy about the movie thing. Whatever would get him on Eliot’s good side. And clothes were really fucking comfy.

Eliot’s bottom dresser drawer was full of cashmere and merino blend sweaters, each cosier than the last. In the perpetual summer of Brakebills, he hardly had occasion to wear them unless they headed into the city on a day trip. But with no pants on, his body temperature would regulate itself so he didn’t end up a sweaty mess. Quentin rooted through as carefully as he could, somewhat messing up Eliot’s clean folding in his pursuit of a nice, thin forest green pullover with a slight v-neck and too-long sleeves. Quentin didn’t have anything fancy as far as underwear went. Eliot had talked him into some nicer basics early in their relationship. So he just pulled on a pair of grey modal boxer briefs and called it a day.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs indicated that somehow Quentin had doodled somewhat in his decision and he found himself hastily throwing his damp towel in the direction of the hamper and dropping to his knees where he stood near the bed just seconds before Eliot came back into the room with a platter of some kind.

“You’re not gonna make me do the thing where I’m not allowed to make eye contact with you, are you?” Quentin blurted the moment Eliot had shut the door behind him with his foot. Maybe to deflect his nerves about all of this or to fill the silence while Eliot stepped into the room and took in Quentin  _ kneeling _ for him.

It was all really weird.

Eliot set the tray on his bed, stayed standing but leaned down to cup the side of his cheek. Quentin liked that, leaning into that touch whenever it came--whether it was while he was on his back, crying out in pleasure, or a casual touch with Eliot perched on the arm of the couch next to him in the common room--and he did it now, Quentin’s eyes wanted to drift closed.

“Why would I do that? You have such pretty eyes.” Eliot said, his thumb ran up and down over Quentin’s cheekbone soothingly. “Don’t hide from me.”

“Ha--okay.” Quentin said, twitching. That wasn’t so much a question as it was a  _ command _ he was supposed to follow. One that would be difficult.

“There you go.” Eliot smiled and  _ oof _ , down there on the ground that smile was like a spotlight aimed right at Quentin. “You look nice and soft, handsome.”

Quentin shrugged. It was  _ nothing.  _ He was in Eliot’s sweater and some underwear. The thick shag rug was leaving imprints in the skin of his knees and shins. “They’re your clothes mostly.”

Eliot’s hand stilled on his face. Nerves lit up all over Quentin then at the quick change in demeanor.  _ I’m in trouble.  _ Eliot could really switch on a dime when it came to his mood. Go from laughing with ease to chilly when some unknowing first year accidentally insulted his bartending. His gaze down at Quentin became more intense, his lips narrowing and forming a thin line. Quentin pressed his face back into Eliot’s hand.  _ Come back.  _ Oh, he wanted to be  _ good _ for Eliot. Not just get him off but actually just please him.

“I gave you a compliment, baby.” Eliot said after what seemed like a full minute. “What do you say?”

“Th-thank you.” Quentin stammered, cheeks heating up. Eliot rewarded him with a fond smile and his hand raked through Quentin’s damp hair, brushing it away from his face.

“You’re welcome.” Eliot said, magnanimous. “Now I’m going to go change as well. You stay right here for me. Don’t move.”

And he left Quentin with a little pat on the cheek.

It was  _ not _ a long time, only mere minutes sitting there on his heels waiting for Eliot to go through his closet on the other side of the room, step into the bathroom and rummage around. But it was  _ weird _ actually waiting for Eliot to get back. He couldn’t scroll through his phone or flip through one of the many books on his side of the bed, couldn’t do anything but  _ wait for Eliot _ to come back. It made him feel kind of squirmy and even more fidgety than normal, because he wasn’t  _ allowed _ to go anywhere.

Quentin could just sit there and listen to Eliot run the water, probably washing his face or doing a full face mask for all he knew. His world was just this little area of the bedroom, nothing to pay attention to except for how neatly Eliot tucked the sheets into the bottom of the bed --despite the fact that Quentin kicked them back out every night--and the smoothed out duvet. The floor was pretty spotless, not a lick of dust anywhere on the hardwood floor not covered by the thick rug around the bed. Quentin found himself pretty thankful for that rug for all that it was saving his knees from being too bruised and sore the next day.

And you know,  _ if _ he was just sitting there, he might as well take care of some  _ things _ that needed to be done anyway, namely their routine protection, cleaning, and prep spells. If anything it would give him something to do with his hands and mean  _ less waiting _ later on. Maybe a cheeky part of Quentin wanted to bypass Eliot working him open tormentingly slowly--not that he didn’t  _ love _ that, but he was pretty thirsty at this point--and just get the show on the road. He worked the familiar tuts, a warm wave washing over him first and then the jarring hot rush of his muscles loosening,  _ opening _ up for Eliot, coating his walls with lube that was slickness made manifest.. Quentin rocked a bit back and forth on his knees, enjoying the slippery, relaxed feeling in his hole.

Ready, maybe feeling a little hollow inside like a pumpkin, Quentin realized that really, sitting there on the floor all loose and ready was actually kind of  _ terrible.  _ There was probably a reason that Eliot did this spell right before he fucked Quentin. And he couldn’t exactly  _ reverse _ it.

The door to the bathroom clicked back open and Eliot appeared. Well, Eliot’s feet appeared in Quentin’s field of vision first, all boney and long, not nearly as hairy as Quentin’s were. Quentin peeked up at the rest of Eliot, dressed for leisure in nice dark blue silk sleep pants and a patterned silk robe covered in suns and moons in gold and silver embroidery. He was tying the sash of the robe as he stepped forward, leaving a considerable amount of his chest exposed as he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Quentin wondered if he was wearing underwear. Probably not. Eliot preferred to go commando whenever it wouldn’t ruin the line of whatever he was wearing.

“It wouldn’t do to take away attention from my outfit.” Eliot had commented once. And Quentin had laughed at the time. Then when he’d actually  _ seen  _ Eliot’s dick. Yeah, Quentin had realized pretty damn quickly that Eliot’s dick was incredibly distracting  _ and noticeable. _

“Did you miss me?” Eliot asked.

“It was a  _ minute, _ Eliot.” Quentin said. Eliot raised an eyebrow. Quentin  _ backpedaled.  _ “I mean--you were right there. I’m fine being left alone. It’s not--not that big of a deal is all.”

Eliot sighed and crouched down in front of Quentin, all folded up knees and elbows like a praying mantis. He quirked his head at Quentin and said, “Are you into this?”

Quentin’s stomach  _ dropped. _ “Yes--I’m just. I like the  _ idea _ of it. But it’s clearly not something I’ve done before and I can’t just--just--this is just how I am, alright?” Quentin blurted out. “So I’m trying and stuff, but like--I’m still  _ me.  _ Like, I can’t be all  _ not me _ and sweet.”

“Okay.” Eliot nodded, the corners of his mouth turned down slightly. “That’s fine. Despite the fact that I  _ do  _ think you’re sweet most of the time. But you’ll tell me if you don’t want to do something, right? I’m shooting myself in the foot when I tell you it's cute when you’re an obstinate little brat. So please just safeword if you don’t want to do something. Otherwise I’m gonna push back on you a little.”

“I’ll tell you if I want to stop. I’ll say ‘Giraffe’ and if you want to stop you’ll say ‘ABBA’.” Quentin said, his stomach fluttering. His hands were all tucked up in the sleeves of Eliot’s sweater. “You can challenge me. It’s okay. We talked about that. I like it.”

They both knew going into this that it wasn’t gonna be easy for Quentin to get into an agreeable headspace. He was still trying to adjust to just regular sex and not getting so keyed up every time Eliot wanted him that he didn’t come pretty much immediately. And now there were  _ rules. _

Eliot nodded to himself. Quentin leaned in and kissed him. Nothing too much, just a quick press of his lips and then he rocked back onto his heels.

“I just don’t want you to feel like I’m coercing you into anything.”

“You’re  _ really fucking not.” _ Quentin said. “We filled out those kink checklists and what you’re planning is like  _ so _ on the vanilla side of what was on there. You brought snacks. I thought you were gonna tie me up and spank me, something like that.”

Eliot took a deep breath.

“Snacks are  _ important.” _ Eliot reminded him. “You wanna get started?”

Quentin nodded, quiet. He consciously unclenched his jaw, worked his shoulders back down from around his ears. It was easier to jam his hands under his thighs lest he end up just pulling Eliot down to the ground and ruining the whole evening. He was all open and  _ ready.  _ A secret. So Quentin sat and tried to wait patiently while Eliot retrieved the collar from the box and presented it to him like a wine bottle at a fancy restaurant.

It  _ wasn’t _ what he’d expected. Not flashy or ostentatious. Eliot had chosen well, dark blue leather with gold hardware. No spikes or pink lettering spelling out ‘Baby Slut’ or anything like that. It was a simple thing.

“There’s a tag.” Quentin said, pointing out the obvious. It was shaped like a heart, which was  _ better _ than a dog bone of Quentin was being honest with himself. “In case I get lost?”

Eliot rolled his eyes. “If you get lost again, I doubt I’d be able to mobilize the whole campus to come find you, regardless of how cute you are.” Quentin reached out and flipped the tag over, the metal cold on his fingertips. There was a small  _ ‘Q’  _ etched on the metal in cursive. He shivered. It  _ belonged _ to him, had his name on it. “Do you like it?”

“Y-yeah.” Quentin answered, swallowing heavily like all of a sudden he could feel the band of leather pressing against his neck. Anticipation curled around his stomach, made him twitchy all over. He was warm all over all of a sudden, waiting for Eliot to put the collar on him.

“Can I put it on?” Eliot asked. Quentin nodded, didn’t trust his voice.

So then Eliot leaned forward and the band of leather wound around his neck, softly passed and lined inside but a little chilly against his skin as Quentin dropped his head a bit so that Eliot could work the buckle. He tested the tightness with a clever swipe of two fingers running under the band of leather, sending up a shiver of sensation in its wake.

Eliot pulled away, leaving behind this  _ weight _ around Quentin’s neck, a heaviness that was so slight but he felt it creeping across his shoulders. The chill of the buckle cut through the weight. Goosebumps broke out over his arms. Wearing the collar was like a bruise he couldn’t stop worrying, minor but impossible to ignore. Likewise, it was hard not to notice the darkness sweeping over Eliot’s eyes.

“Look at you.” Eliot said.

Quentin released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, a bit dizzy. He’d blame that on the fact that he was just so ready for Eliot to fuck him and  _ not  _ ready for the collar. Could you ever really be ready for a thing like that? It wasn’t possible to be this affected by something that small, was it?

“Don’t--make it weird, alright?” Quentin shook his head. “You don’t have to point it out.”

It wasn’t like  _ boom, his worries vanished _ or anything like that. Like all of a sudden he was gonna throw himself down on his back and show Eliot his soft underbelly. There was just this  _ awareness _ all over that something was  _ off _ . That Eliot was looking at him through a different lens. Frankly, it was a bit shocking that they’d made it this far without just ending up making out and throwing their plans by the wayside. Neither one of them really did the whole delayed gratification thing.

But when Eliot said it, ‘Look at you.’ all Quentin could do was picture what someone would see if they walked into Eliot's room without knocking--an impossibility--and saw him there kneeling on the floor. Well, it would be pretty obvious that something kinky was going on what with the collar and Eliot standing over Quentin. Though, Eliot wasn’t all worked up, muttering praise and getting his hands everywhere on Quentin that he could. He was just  _ there,  _ this calming presence while Quentin’s thoughts buzzed around in his head. And it made a vast well of need begin to bubble up inside him.

“Do you know what it means when you wear this?” Eliot asked, ignoring Quentin’s request to not point the collar out. He leaned down and ran a finger over the leather, Quentin felt the pressure like a fleeting thing.

Quentin shook his head. “No. You’ll just have to tell me.”

“It means you’re mine, right?” Eliot was a  _ great _ actor, but this was just the truth. “It means I’m the one who is going to take care of you and all you have to do is be a good boy and let me. It means I get to look at you and show you off and there’s nothing you can do about it. So, I  _ will _ make it weird if I want. Because you’re mine.”

“I want that, too.” Quentin said in a quiet voice. “I trust you.”

But letting Eliot do that was easier said than done.

Eliot nodded once, standing back up to his full height, which seemed magnified now with the collar on. Quentin learned forward, pressed his forehead to Eliot’s thigh. It seemed like the right thing to do, all firm and warm, right  _ there. _ Quentin hummed as Eliot’s hand dropped to the top of his head and held him there for a long moment. The weight of his hand and the edge of the collar gently biting into the skin of his collarbone made warmth coil low in his belly.

“Come here,” Eliot said, pivoting them so that Eliot could sit down on their bed and Quentin sat on his heels in the v between his thighs. Quentin wound an arm around Eliot’s calf, looking up at him in question. “That’s okay. You can touch me, Q.” Eliot said, tipping his head until it was leaning against Eliot’s knee. He felt  _ small _ . His heart picked up. “Baby, remember why we’re doing this?”

Quentin nodded, hand crushing the silk of Eliot’s pants in a fist, tension everywhere. It felt like if he didn’t hold everything in as tightly as he could, he would just completely fall apart.

“Tell me. Why are we doing this?”

Oh. Oh that. Quentin looked away, at the floor for about a moment before Eliot’s hand curled more firmly in his hair and guided his face back up until Quentin’s back was bowstring-tight and he was firmly back in Eliot’s view. Quentin gulped.

“Sorry--I wanted.” Quentin wet his lips, trying to remember that afternoon on the Sea. What it all came down to. “I wanted you to own me.”

What a fucked up thought. He was his own  _ person.  _ He didn’t need Eliot to tell him what to do.

But then Eliot was cupping Quentin’s cheek with his other hand, effectively pinning his face there against the inside of his knee. Quentin squirmed, shifting his weight. Eliot was resolute, solid, demanding Quentin’s attention.

“I do own you.” Eliot said. Quentin _whimpered,_ had to close his eyes despite Eliot’s earlier command _._ This was something to _hide_ from, the part of him that started waking up, the beginning twinge of arousal coursing through him. The man in Quentin who didn’t want to have to _be_ him with all his neurosis and sharpness. The part of him that wanted to abandon autonomy and just let someone else deal with everything. “When you’re wearing this collar, you’re mine. I’ll take care of you, protect you just like I did when you couldn’t do that for yourself. Okay, kitten?”

Quentin shook his head as much as he could, “I don’t want that--I’m not--I don’t want to chase a ball or crawl everywhere. Not a cat.”

Of  _ course _ Eliot knew that. It had been the first thing Quentin had blurted when they began working on the logistics.

“No, but you were so sweet when you  _ were _ one.” Eliot teased him. Quentin frowned, weirdly  _ enjoying _ the teasing. “I could just pick you up and put you under my arm whenever I wanted. And you liked that, didn’t you?”

Quentin blinked up at him, nodding despite himself. “I did.” There was a weird freedom in just being picked up and plonked down at any moment. He was glad there wasn’t photo evidence of that particular part.

“What else did you like?”

So many things, really. Parts that were hard to explain. How time moved differently, stretching out slow and laguid when he was awake to compensate for all the time he spent asleep. The satisfaction of stretching out until all of his vertebrae popped and  _ then _ pushing a bit further. Warmth seeping through his fur into every molecule of his being. Being  _ kind _ of an asshole, but it being okay because he was cute. Cat stuff.

He went with one that wouldn’t end up taking an hour to explain. The one that might get the ball rolling, get Eliot to touch him,  _ really touch him. _

“You’d pet me. Over and over. Pay attention to me even if you weren’t talking to me, like if there were other people there. You kept touching me. I didn’t care if people were looking at me. I could f-finally relax.” Quentin said, Eliot’s thumb rubbed over his cheek bone. “I didn’t pay attention to anyone else. I didn’t have to talk to anyone. I wasn’t expected to, because,  _ cat. _ ”

He imagined what that would be like now. A room full of people talking and mingling, ignoring Quentin except to make little comments about how well behaved he was in passing before carrying on with Eliot about something that  _ people _ cared about--art, music, food,  _ whatever-- _ leaving Quentin there to just zone out at Eliot’s feet with his hand in Quentin’s hair. It sounded peaceful if also stressful to let someone  _ see _ him like that.

Eliot swept a hand over Quentin’s head to his shoulder, rubbing back and forth across the softness of his sweater. He took his curled pointer finger and rolled it back and forth under Quentin’s chin, making his neck arch reflexively. That was-- _ that was _ something he remembered pretty vividly--the urge to tilt his head back and close his eyes at the simple touch.

“You want to be a good boy for me, Quentin?” Eliot asked. Quentin nodded, hiding his face away for a moment, his other arm curled around Eliot’s calf. He was gonna end up tied up in knots if he wasn’t careful. But he needed something to hold onto. “You just want attention, don’t you? You’re just a needy little thing when it comes down to it.”

Quentin shook his head then, “No. I’m not. That’s not--you’re making it sound like that’s all I do.”

“Look at you now, all wound up around me. That’s not wanting my attention?”

Quentin balked, going to pull his hands away. Lord, he  _ was _ practically hugging Eliot’s leg to his chest. It was  _ embarrassing,  _ the heat all over him. The door was closed, if he wanted he could stick his whole face right there in Eliot’s crotch, whine until he got what he wanted.

“No, stay.” Eliot said. “That’s not  _ bad.  _ Q, you’re allowed to want that. To want me to pay attention to you. To be all pretty and sweet, waiting for me to tell you what you should be doing.”

“I can  _ do things  _ on my own. I’m not needy.” Quentin argued, obstinate. A little hummingbird of a thrill went through him at the words, his embarrassment at being caught up in a lie so thoroughly. Saying he wasn’t needy while his eyes had practically rolled back in his head at Eliot’s words. “You’re the one who likes me close. Maybe  _ you’re  _ needy.”

Eliot snorted, a little condescending, and that should have taken away from his in controlled attitude but it really didn’t. Instead it left Quentin pretty much unprepared for Eliot hooking a finger through the ring of the collar and jerking Quentin’s head a little closer, further up his thigh. Quentin  _ went, _ unprepared for the movement. All of his strength zapped away, it made him want to prove he still had some power, pull against him.

“I do like you close.” Eliot replied coolly, “And you’re  _ certainly _ not my pet. My kitten would gladly curl up in my lap without being bratty about it.”

Quentin’s mouth dropped open. “I’m  _ not _ a brat.”

“Hmmm,” Eliot shook his head. “You have  _ potential _ to be a good boy for me, I suppose. Because you’re mine, and you know I only want the  _ best _ things.”

“I can be good.” Quentin said. His knees were somewhat throbbing at him, but despite this Quentin scooched forward, pressing his cheek to Eliot’s thigh, trying to get closer. He abandoned holding onto his leg in favor of getting his greedy hands inside the robe, searching out the waistband of his sleep pants. “Let me--”

“Ah ah  _ ahh,” _ Eliot tsked, snatching up both of Quentin’s wrists in his hands, easily tugging him away. “That’s a reward. You only get to suck my cock if you’re good. You’ll be lucky to even get  _ that _ with all this backtalk.”

Quentin whined and tugged against Eliot’s grip on his wrists, not going anywhere. A smile curled across Eliot’s lips at the movement. Heat built in Quentin at the easy display of power from his boyfriend. This close to Eliot he could  _ smell _ him, see the heady outline of his dick against the dark silk of his pants. It made his mouth water embarrassingly. Eliot  _ wanted _ him, he knew it. Why wasn’t he doing anything?

“I’ll be  _ so  _ good. I will. I promise, Eliot. Just let me do it now.” Quentin said, pressing the side of his face as much as he could into Eliot’s leg, the tag on the collar made a small metallic sound as he did, signaling his desperation. Quentin abruptly stopped. Jesus, he was acting like a  _ wild  _ thing, wiggling all over. Once again reminded of his secret, the slick evidence of magical lube leaking out of him ever so slowly.

“Sit back, baby.” Eliot said. Quentin whined but extricated himself from Eliot as much as he could. Eliot let go of his wrists. Quentin dropped his hands into his lap, wanting to curl in on himself. “If you show me how good you can be during the movie, you’ll get a reward. If you  _ can’t _ you’re getting a punishment. Maybe I’ll turn you over my knee.”

_ “El.” _ A punched out sound.

Eliot tilted his head, considering Quentin. “No, maybe you like that idea too much. That would have you willfully disobeying me just to get me to spank you until you cry.”

“I  _ wouldn’t _ do that.” Quentin shook his head, the tag jingling in the ring as he moved. He would  _ definitely _ do something like that.

Eliot’s ankle circled slowly as he tilted his head to the side, his foot drew closer and lifted the bottom of Quentin’s sweater. The chilled air of the room crept across his belly, making him flinch. Quentin squirmed and looked down, he was thickening up in his boxer briefs. From  _ nothing. _ He made an annoyed sound and covered himself back up, hands clenching the material of Eliot’s sweater, stretched down over his knees.

“Hmm,” Eliot considered this. “You’ll just have to show me how good you can be then. You’re hard already. You must really like this.”

He patted Quentin on the cheek and then scooted up onto the bed. Quentin went to stand, knees protesting.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Eliot asked, a perplexed expression on his face.

“What does it look like? I’m getting up with you.” Quentin said, rubbing at the indentations in his knees absently.

“I don’t think so.” Eliot said, shaking his head. He picked up one of the throw pillows and held it out to him. “Here you go, baby.”

_ “Eliot.”  _ Quentin protested, clipped. “This isn’t funny.”

Eliot nodded, a serene expression on his face. “I agree. It’s not. I don’t think you’ve been good enough to come sit up here with me just yet. We’ll see how you do down there for a bit and go from there. Kneel there for me.”

Quentin numbly took the pillow from Eliot’s hands, holding it against his chest. “You’re serious.”

Eliot was already reaching for  _ Quentin’s  _ laptop and keying in the password, leaned up against the pillows at the head of the bed. He had  _ mango _ and really good chocolate.

“I’m not gonna reward your bad attitude.” Eliot shrugged. “But if you’re  _ good _ and sit quietly while I watch my movie, we can see about letting you come up here on the bed with me.”

Quentin petulantly dropped the pillow on the floor, knelt down on it turned  _ away _ from the bed, arms crossed over his chest.  _ There. _ See how Eliot liked it if Quentin ignored him.

Eliot chuckled to himself, “Alright, if that’s how you want to play it, Q.”

“It is.” Quentin muttered.

Eliot sighed and then rolled over, dropping a hand to Quentin’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“I’m  _ fine _ apart from the fact that I’m going to have early onset arthritis.” Quentin said, cheeks heating. That tender wobbly feeling like he was about to cry spiking in the back of his throat because he hadn’t gotten his way. If he’d just been nicer, sweet,  _ agreeable _ he’d be up there right now, closer to Eliot and his  _ snacks. _ “It’s okay.” He added. Eliot’s hand squeezed his shoulder and pulled away.

“Alright, I’ll check on you in fifteen, we’ll see if you’ve learned your lesson.”

Quentin very much resisted the urge to mouth the words back to himself mockingly. He  _ was _ after all supposed to be good. But part of him just wanted to needle and poke at Eliot until he got a response.

_ “Quentin.”  _ Eliot intoned.

“Fifteen minutes. Got it.”

“Alright,” Eliot said, a softer tone to his voice. “No talking unless you need to safeword. And you’d better keep your hands to yourself.”

“Yeah, because the wall is really turning me on.”

“Wow, you  _ really  _ don’t give a fuck about your joints, do you, babe?” Eliot sighed. “I’ll see you in twenty then.”

Quentin snapped his mouth closed on a comment back. Clearly he was going to spend his whole Friday night on the floor if he kept things up.

If he’d had  _ his _ pick, they’d be watching  _ ‘Labyrinth’ _ \--a great crowd pleaser since there was David Bowie and  _ also _ Jim Henson muppets--but  _ instead _ Eliot had chosen  _ ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, _ which Quentin had somehow seen half a dozen times on TV and with Julia and really just  _ couldn’t get into. _ He’d tried. But there was really just no getting over the fact that Andy’s boyfriend was the real villain of the movie and everyone would have been a lot less stressed out all the time if they weren’t so worried about spilling food on their expensive-ass clothes.

What was worse than having to watch ‘ _ The Devil Wears Prada’  _ was having to  _ listen _ to Eliot watching ‘ _ The Devil Wears Prada’  _ when if he’d been on the bed, he at least could have been snacking and comfortable. Instead, he just had to sit there with no pants on and listen to the movie.

Quentin shifted from side to side a bit, trying to give himself something to pay attention to other than Meryl Streep  _ carrying _ this movie. He sighed and cracked his knuckles, rolled his shoulders. Eliot hummed absently, Quentin settled back down onto his heels. It went on like that for a while, somehow Quentin was still hard, a fact that was incredibly curious and required further investigation at a later date.

He found himself playing with the D-ring of the collar for want of anything to do but stare at the wall and feel his life waste away. When he flipped the ring back and forth between his fingers, the tag made a little metallic clicking sound over and over. He flipped it over and over between his fingers, batting it this way and that.

“Quiet, Q.” Eliot said in a soft voice, one of those freakishly long arms of his reached over and he dropped his hand onto the back of Quentin’s neck. Quentin gulped, nodding. He settled for holding the tag between his thumb and forefinger, running his thumb over the engraved surface over and over.

His eyes slipped closed--oh what a shame it was to lose that view of the wall by the bed--kept rubbing at the tag on the collar while his other hand tried to surreptitiously rub over his erection. The friction was _ good _ , and if he could just pace it with the musical interstitials of the movie, he could cover the sound of his hand over the fabric. Like scratching an itch after having a cast on, it was a painful brand of relief even if he wasn’t getting anywhere. Not without risking throwing Eliot off by moving his arm around too much.

_ But then he got greedy. _

Touching gently with a few fingers became grinding the heel of his hand over where he was so hard and aching for Eliot to do  _ anything.  _ Quentin stifled a small whimper, cock twitching, which just sent a chain reaction through him. Ass clenching on nothing but all the magical lube still there. Still so open and aching for Eliot to fuck him with his fingers, his dick,  _ anything.  _ He’d even settle for the dildo in the bedside drawer that he’d bought for himself in the time  _ before. _ Trying to suppress a shudder that ran through his whole body. It took everything to not just pull down his underwear, say  _ fuck it _ and jerk himself off if Eliot wasn’t going to do it.

_ “Q-- _ I know you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.”

Quentin stilled, hand heavy over his dick still, unwilling to let it go.

“I don’t know. What do you think I’m doing?” Quentin peeked over his shoulder. Eliot was on his side, head on his hand clearly watching him like he had been for a while. The movie paused.

“I think you’re touching yourself. I think I hear you whimpering down there.” Eliot tutted quietly, drew himself back up to sitting at the head of the bed, hands in his lap all regal.

“Yeah.” Quentin shrugged.

“Didn’t I say something about that?”

It was like Eliot didn’t know him at  _ all _ if he left that door wide open. “You told me to keep my hands to myself--seems like I am.” Quentin turned back around, a contrite expression on his face, his hand still cupping his dick. “I just wanted to be with you and now you’re ignoring me--was trying to keep myself occupied so you could enjoy your movie.”

_ “I’m sure.”  _ Eliot shook his head, peering down at him intently. “Do you want to come tonight?”

Quentin nodded, despite himself his hips rolled into his hand. Maybe if he  _ looked _ good enough, Eliot’s self control would crumble and he’d give Quentin what he wanted.

“Stop.” Eliot commanded. Quentin stilled his hand, left it there on his dick, feeling it twitch as precome blurted out and wetted the fabric of his underwear. “Take your fucking hand off your dick.”

Quentin sighed and did as he was told, resting his hands on his thighs.

“Spread your legs for me.” Eliot said. And Quentin  _ did,  _ hating how it sent a shivery flutter of embarrassment through him, putting himself on display like that for Eliot, so he could see the tremble of his muscles and the wet patch over his dick in his underwear. “Tell me why I should let you come for me at all after how you’ve acted so far.”

“Because--because,” Quentin worried his lower lip. “Because you’re such a good boyfriend?”

Eliot rolled his eyes and shook his head, “I’m your boyfriend, but that’s not what we’re playing right now, Q. Who do you belong to?”

“You.” Quentin’s voice came out small. He dug his nails into the skin of his thighs to cut through the swoop of heat that sent through him. “You own me.”

“That’s right. Very good.” Eliot said. Quentin had to look away. His face was so warm it was distracting. “I said you’d get to come if you were a good boy who followed the rules. Have you been good for me?”

Quentin shook his head feeling very small there on the floor all of a sudden, so aware of how vulnerable this all was. He hadn’t expected the talking part to make him feel so raw.

“Say it.”

Quentin pursed his lips. “I’ve been bad.”

Strange how that didn’t necessarily make him want to be  _ good,  _ rather, he wanted Eliot to  _ make him _ be good.

“That’s right. You’ve been bratty this whole time.” Eliot agreed. “I told you about Javier.”

Jealousy lit up inside him at the mere mention of the name, even if Quentin would never meet the man. “Yeah.”

He knew all about the string of older guys Eliot had found when he was new to the city early on in his  _ transformation.  _ Those men didn’t know what they fucking had if they’d been content with just the shiny shell Eliot wore. They didn’t get to have him like how he was with Quentin--caring and kind of a mess when you really got down to it. The best man. The best  _ friend _ someone could ask for.

Javier, well he wanted  _ this _ right here from Eliot, to have him at his feet like a pretty pet. Which Eliot had liked since it mostly involved presents and being looked at and praised. And there was nothing Eliot liked so much as being appreciated--which was just  _ not _ Quentin.

“You’re lucky I’m so  _ lenient.”  _ Eliot continued. “Other men wouldn’t put up with this. You’d have a sore bottom and no chance of coming for a  _ week  _ if you pulled this shit with them. Once was enough for me, I learned my lesson after that.”

“Well--then maybe I’d learn my lesson if you  _ did _ spank me.” Quentin said, a little bitchy at the implication he’d do this for anyone other than Eliot.

“You want it too much,” Eliot shook his head, disappointed. “That’s not how punishment works. That’s not how I get you to behave. I’d ignore you--till you were begging me to touch you, to give you just the tiniest bit of attention. And I wouldn’t, not until you’d settled down.”

“I don’t want that.”

“I know. You’re so fucking needy.” Eliot agreed. “You’d do anything just to get my hands on you.”

“Please--I want that. Touch me.” Quentin begged.

“Awww, that’s cute.” Eliot said, a condescending little smirk crossed his face. “You haven’t earned it.”

Quentin’s face fell. His hands twitched on his knees.

“I want you to think long and hard before you answer this question, okay?” Eliot said. “You’re mine. I decide what happens to you. I’ll take care of you. Why should I let you come?”

A million reasons popped into Quentins head. 

_ Because you think it’s hot.  _

_ Because I really want to. _

_ Because I’ll make it up to you. _

_ Because I’m so ready for you _ .

Quentin swallowed heavily, the collar pressed against his neck, a reminder of what they’d agreed on. Eliot was in charge. He’d take care of Quentin. He knew what was  _ best. _

“You shouldn’t.” Quentin answered, hating how wobbly his voice was in that moment.

“Why not?”

Quentin scrunched up his mouth, every part of this leaving him hurt. “Because I don’t deserve it. I haven’t followed rules. I’m a brat. Because you decide that stuff.”

He felt hollowed out and raw, maybe a little like he was going to cry as he wrote his own ticket for the evening.

But  _ then _ the heavens opened up and Eliot spoke.

“That’s right. You’ve been very bad. But can you show me how good you can be from now on?”

A great big flood of  _ relief _ nearly knocked Quentin sideways. He nodded enthusiastically.

“Come on then, honey. I think you learned your lesson.” Eliot patted the space beside him, scooting over so when Quentin made his way ungracefully to his feet, he immediately had a place to crawl into, thankful to take the weight off his ankles.

Then they had to  _ watch the movie _ apparently. Eliot was actually serious about that. It wasn’t just a ploy to get them on the bed and pressed together from head to toe. He actually expected Quentin to lay there in a collar with Eliot’s arm around his waist, tugging him in until Quentin was laying with his head on Eliot’s chest. And then  _ that was it. _

And Quentin was sort of content to be quiet and  _ good _ for a while, mostly lazing there enjoying the weight off his shins while Eliot fed him broken off pieces of chocolate and mango and played with his hair. It was boring, but fine. But it meant Eliot was also  _ there,  _ smelling so nice and so warm, not paying him any mind. Then,  _ of course _ boredom set in, Quentin found himself somehow even more tangled up in Eliot than he had been before--all of a sudden he realized he was on his side, a leg thrown up over both of Eliot’s legs, his hand trying to slide under the opening of his robe  _ just right there. _

“Quentin.” Eliot said, warning.

Quentin huffed out a dramatic sigh. Eliot just didn’t  _ get  _ it, how much Quentin didn’t want to just sit there and watch a movie, how much he wanted Eliot to do  _ something. _

So maybe Quentin just had to push him a little bit to get him there?

So much for being good.

Eliot was a big old slut for hickies. Seriously, the guy had played  _ such  _ a cool game with Quentin their first time together until he’d gotten his mouth on Eliot’s neck and he’d started trembling. Quentin scooted up as surreptitiously as he could, until he could breathe in the scent of Eliot’s aftershave so close, peer up to look at his face still diligently watching the movie. Quentin couldn’t exactly  _ ask _ for what he wanted, could he?

Better to beg for forgiveness, right?

Eliot jerked against him minutely at the first contact of Quentin’s lips on the devastatingly regal column of his neck, close to the notch at the base of his throat. Quentin paused, lips pressed chastly to the skin there for a reaction. Eliot hummed and rubbed between Quentin’s shoulder blades. Okay--so then it was  _ on.  _ Quentin pulled out all his best tricks. Long, lingering open mouthed kisses with tongue and a bit of teeth, sucking until Eliot hissed and then soothing with broad laves of his tongue. He managed this for a while, until the movie was pretty much background noise, his brain filling with the static of zeroing in on this. Eliot moaned and bent his neck to the side, granting Quentin more access.

This--this was more  _ like it.  _ Something to do, Eliot’s stuttered breathing right in his ear, a firm hip to rock his dick into. Quentin rolled into the friction of Eliot’s body, practically crawling on top of Eliot in the process.

Eliot made a rough sound, pulling him away from his neck with a handful of Quentin’s hair. Eyes rolling back in his head, Quentin gasped as Eliot pulled him away and pushed him onto his back on the bed, looming over him with a wild look in his eyes.

“Am I boring you?” Eliot asked, panting.

Quentin shrugged, making a lock and key motion with his hand up at his lips.

Eliot’s eyes narrowed, “Oh you can’t answer me now?” Quentin nodded, blood fizzing in his veins. He tried to press up against Eliot, get some friction. “See, you’re so fucking needy. Can’t even let me enjoy my movie without trying to distract me. Bad boy.”

Quentin frowned comically up at him. In all his years of  _ never _ getting in trouble for anything serious, the idea of being called a ‘bad boy’ was just like  _ not a concern. _ And if it had gotten him under Eliot’s body finally, then  _ maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing? _

But instead of sending him back down onto the floor, Eliot surprised him.

“Come up here then, I’ll keep you busy, okay?”

Quentin nodded so quickly he nearly headbutted Eliot.

Eliot’s lap was  _ a great place to be _ and maybe rivaled The Magic Kingdom as the Happiest Place on Earth as far as Quentin was concerned, especially when their bodies were so close together that Quentin moved with Eliot’s breaths, his thighs aching pleasantly at the stretch of straddling Eliot’s hips.

“There you go.” Eliot shushed him with a petting hand over his neck, angling Quentin’s head down until his forehead met the crook of Eliot’s shoulder. So there was nowhere to look but down between their bodies, the weeping line of his own cock in his underwear and the shadow of where Eliot’s robe fell a little open. “Settle down now, let me watch.”

And then the oddest thing was, he  _ did.  _ With nothing to do but perch there on Eliot’s lap with the other man's arms around him and Eliot all hard and hot under his ass, Quentin closed his eyes and  _ focused. _ He drifted on the feeling of Eliot all around him and under him, the way that Eliot kept running his hand up and down his back while he watched the movie on his laptop, pretty much ignoring Quentin’s presence, but still keeping him all wrapped up in his arms.

It was  _ like _ that time before, when he couldn’t speak, when he was small and underfoot. Curled up on Eliot’s lap on a weekday afternoon, paws tucked up under his chin, a low rumble of contentment bubbling inside his chest.

By the time that Eliot finally said something other than his name or something embarrassing like, “Aww, I see. You just wanted attention. To be close.” Quentin was somehow still hard, leaking and buzzy all over. Just a warm stream of salted caramel sauce poured over apple pie, spilling all over everything. He snorted to himself.

“Baby?” Eliot pulled Quentin gently away and he was just so  _ Eliot _ , so close and strong. And he had such nice pajamas--silky. Quentin’s hands were all wrapped up in the front of his robe somehow.

Quentin blinked at him, head lolling to the side. The collar bit into his jaw a little. It just felt so  _ nice _ there, surrounding him.

“Are you finally going all sweet on me?” Eliot asked.

And words were like  _ a thing.  _ But making them was also  _ a thing-- _ one that wasn’t gonna happen. So he just smiled and scooted closer.

“I see.” Eliot said, “Should have known all you wanted was to be in my lap. That’s how I get you to behave, isn’t it? Tell me.”

Quentin nodded, “Ye-ah.”

Eliot’s palms ran up and down the tense muscles of Quentin’s thighs, scratching through the hair there. “You look so relaxed like this. Are you okay?”

A warm flutter, like the kind that got stuck in his chest when he was high thrummed to life.

“Please?”

Eliot blinked a  _ long _ blink, looked away and then he had a glass of water in his hand and Quentin was drinking a sip even though he wasn’t really thirsty. But it was there. He licked his lips after, chasing a cold bead of moisture away. Quentin settled down heavier and heavier onto Eliot’s lap until he hit the wall, thighs locking up, ankles threatening to pop in protest. He hissed, scrambling back up.

“Hey--hey, hold on.” Eliot said, moving him until he was sitting flat on his butt between Eliot’s legs, knees scrunched up like a cricket. “Don’t hurt yourself, Q. Please, what? What do you want?”

Want was honey slow and sticking to every part of him, Quentin would have slipped back til his shoulders hit the bed if it weren’t for Eliot's hands clasping him about the ribs. Safe and sound.

“Y-you tell me.”

Eliot chuckled. “I could give you anything right now, couldn’t I?”

Quentin nodded.

“I could even tell you to just touch yourself and let me watch, that would be enough.”

“No--” Quentin shook his head. “You do it.”

“You’re such a pillow princess.” Eliot tutted.

“That’s not bad.” Quentin shook his head. “Please, I was good.”

“Pretty boy.” Eliot said, one hand cupping his cheek. “Were you good  _ enough _ to get a reward?”

Quentin nodded.

“Don’t know why I bother asking, like you wouldn’t always say yes. What if I wanted to watch another movie? Would you let me just hold you?” Eliot asked. Quentin’s face fell, scrunching.  _ “There he is.  _ Q, you get so bent out of shape when things don’t go your way. Such a brat.”

“No.” Quentin shook his head, “I want  _ you _ to feel good. What you want.”

“Oh, you’re  _ so _ charitable. Come on, give us a kiss now.”

Maybe if he showed Eliot just how much he wanted him with the kiss, that would  _ convince _ him to touch Quentin--really touch him, finally. Quentin scooted in the cradle of Eliot’s thighs until he was close enough to wrap both his arms around Eliot’s neck, draw him down all mouth half-open and eager. It was just bliss, finally kissing him, whining into Eliot’s mouth, eyes half open to try to see the hungry look crossing Eliot’s face. His arms crossed over each other, pulling Eliot tightly to him, licking desperately at the seam of Eliot’s lips, nipping there with a pathetic sound until Eliot opened to him.

There,  _ finally.  _

He was hungry for Eliot, for any part of him he could consume and though Eliot was kissing him  _ back _ , it wasn’t with his usual possessive fervor. Quentin made a sad keen and tried to coax him into taking control,  _ anything. _ He waggled his hips into Eliot’s, sliding over the silky hardness of his cock just separated from him by one layer of thin material.

Finally, Quentin bit down on Eliot’s button lip, relishing the immediate pressure of Eliot’s hand in his hair, pulling him off to stare down at him with dark, shaded eyes.

_ “Quentin.”  _ Eliot chastised. “Is this how you show me how good you can be?”

Quentin smiled. “Wanted you to kiss me.”

“What do I have to do to just get you to obey?”

“Make me. I guess.”

“You’re so sweet until you don’t get your way.” Eliot shook his head. He settled his hands on Quentin’s hips, thumbs rubbing maddening circles into his skin. The moment he touched Quentin’s dick, it would all be over. “That’s why you need me here, isn’t it? To make you be good. But it’s so hard for you to be good and just do what I say. It’s okay. You wanna know what would happen if you stopped fighting me?”

“Tell me, please?”

“You wouldn’t get anything done--wouldn’t need to. You’d just stay in bed all cock hungry and whiny. You’d happily just laze about all day, not a care in the world.”

Quentin nodded, “Yeah.” It came out dreamy.

“I could make you.” Eliot said quickly, like he hadn’t been expecting it to tumble out of his mouth. “Order you to take a break from your  _ extra credit _ just so I could keep you up here all weekend, all sex stupid and ready for me.” Quentin was panting, nodding. “And you’re mine--you’d love it. Wearing what I tell you to. Coming when I say. Nothing to worry your pretty little head.”

“I want that. Do that.” Quentin begged, dropping his head into the crook of Eliot’s shoulder to nuzzle in desperately.

“No.” Eliot said, he pulled Quentin away with a heavy hand on the back of his neck. Quentin’s spine melted. “Tonight we were going to just watch a movie so we could get a taste of what this would be like for you. Turns out I need to be more prepared for your attitude.” Quentin pouted. “So we’re going to finish the movie--there’s half an hour left--and this is your  _ last chance, Quentin. _ You will be good and quiet. You will not touch your hard little dick, regardless of how needy it is. You’ll be quiet and cuddle with me and if you can do that, I’ll  _ think  _ about fucking you.”

Quentin nodded, a thrill building inside him at another  _ chance _ to finally get something out of tonight.

“Does that sound okay?” Eliot asked, his voice slipped back into his familiar, conversational tone.

“That sounds good--more than I deserve, honestly.” Quentin said, more level headed with the check in.

Eliot nodded once. “Alright, climb off then, let me hold you.”

The rest of the movie passed fairly quickly, without incident. Quentin allowed himself to be spooned back against Eliot and focused really hard on trying not to wiggle his hips back against his half hard dick. Eliot’s hand wrapped around Quentin’s neck and played with the tag on the collar absently through the third act of the movie.

Quentin drifted back into the headspace he’d been in before until the credits rolled and Eliot rolled him onto his back, looking down on him with a fond expression.

“That was so good, Q.” he said, for all that he should have been the sun with Quentin basking in his warmth. “I know it’s hard for you, letting me take control. Thank you for trying.”

Quentin blinked up at him, “Was I okay?”

Eliot nodded and brushed back his hair. “Yeah, you were okay. Better than. You were very good. Wish I could keep you this sweet all the time. But I’d miss your little obstinate face, if I’m honest.”

“I’ll try.” Quentin said.

_ “I’m sure.” _ Eliot laughed to himself. “I’m sure you will. If not, I’ll be here to help you be better. Tell me what you want.”

Oh but there was really just  _ one  _ thing it boiled down to. After so long, after wanting it so much. “Want you to fuck me, please.”

Eliot hummed. “Yeah, baby. You can have that. Let’s get you ready. Take off your sweater for me and I’ll do the rest.”

Quentin struggled out from the confines of the sweater, wrestling it out from under his back. He emerged the other side just as Eliot worked the final tuts of their prep spell.

_ “Fuck---”  _ Quentin whimpered as heat coursed through him, ripples along with the slackening of his muscles. He had to slap a hand over his dick, clamp tightly down on it as the sensation of warm slickness suddenly dribbled out of him and all over his thighs--everywhere. “Oh my-- _ Eliot. _ I’m--”

“Holy  _ shit.”  _ Eliot said, there spreading his legs with two strong hands while Quentin futilely clenched down to stop the just absolute mess of magical lube from soaking the sheets. “Are you okay? I did the spell just like we always--” Eliot’s eyebrows furrowed. He looked between the darkness of the sopping grey fabric between Quentins’ legs then up to his face, where Quentin’s lower lip was firmly clamped between his teeth. “Q, did you do something while I was gone?”

Quentin’s eyes went huge and he suddenly found himself with no words, just a rushing feeling in his ears and heat all  _ over.  _ He nodded, lips pulled down into a frown. He’d forgotten.

“It looks like you creamed your pants already, Q.” Eliot said. And there was nothing Quentin could do to stop him from bending Quentin’s leg back, dipping a finger beneath the sodden leg of fabric until he was prodding the absolute slickness of his asshole. Quentin moaned and tried to draw away in shame. This was  _ bad. _ He felt it down to his bones, just how insatiable and needy he really was, literally dripping wet for Eliot. “This is why, isn’t it--why you’ve been wagging this ass at me all night, can’t stand being empty, can you? It’s all about what  _ you _ want.”

Quentin nodded, closing his eyes. He couldn’t deny it. That he was bad and also a huge slut for Eliot, that was all he was good for. That if Eliot wanted to, he really  _ could _ keep Quentin up here all the time and Quentin would happily lay at his feet, waiting for whatever Eliot told him to do.

“I’m sorry.” Quentin peaked up at Eliot, “I just want you. I’ll be good. I will--do whatever you want.” He gasped through tears, just messy everywhere with lube drying cold across his thighs and balls _. _

“Hey, shh.” Eliot dropped down over him, pressed his whole body over Quentin’s like the best weighted blanket. “Check in with me. Is this okay? You want to just call it?”

Frantically, Quentin shook his head. “No, just--just let me, just tell me what you want and I’ll do it--lemme show you I can do it.”

Eliot kissed over his cheek and his forehead. Quentin could feel the heavy length of Eliot’s cock against his thigh. It was all he wanted, to feel himself open up on it, make Eliot feel good. Quentin quieted back down, clutching Eliot’s shoulders, breathing in time with him for several long minutes until his tears dried and he was left with a stuffy nose and a raging boner.

“You ready to try again?” Eliot asked, up on his elbows. He thumbed the space under Quentin’s eyes, wiping away the tears.

“Yeah--El.” Quentin nodded.

“Okay. Just this and then we’re done.” Eliot agreed.

Quentin made a sad noise at the implication it would be over, despite the fact he’d just been  _ crying. _

“No pouting.” Eliot smirked, booped him on the nose. “Come on, up in my lap again.”

Quentin rushed to obey and in a flash Eliot was  _ finally _ naked, sitting up at the head of the bed, miles of leg stretched out before him, beaconing Quentin into his lap once he’d shed his gross, sopping underwear and thrown them towards the hamper. It was  _ awkward _ going, every move he made just made Quentin wildly aware that lube was still leaking out of him, a line of it actually managing to dribble down his leg. He whined, trying to wipe it away but Eliot took his arms by the wrists and wrapped his hands around the wrought iron of the headboard.

“You made your mess, baby. You’re gonna have to deal with it. Keep your hands here.” Eliot said. Quentin  _ dissolved _ into a puddle, just like the one he was probably gonna end up leaving on the bed.

It was an _absurdly_ easy, slick rush, fucking himself down onto Eliot--who, regardless of prep was _a lot_ to take on a good day--and by the time Quentin bottomed out, thighs landing on Eliots, he was basically a limp noodle. Eliot stroked his back as Quentin adjusted to the girth, huffing out deep breaths into Eliot’s chest with his eyes closed. Not out of discomfort, but the mind boggling ease of it all, like he’d already gone a couple of rounds but there was none of the soreness. His hands gripped the headboard tightly, leveraging his weight up and then flopping back down with a groan.

“Come on, you can do better than that, princess.” Eliot goaded him, hissing when Quentin bit him on the shoulder in retaliation. Retribution came swiftly in the form of a sharp slap to the outside of Quentin’s thigh.

“Ow--fuck.” Quentin whined. “El--it’s so much.”

“Yeah?” Eliot’s hands on Quentin’s hips worked him in a slow grind right there where he was so full and slippery it felt like he was bound to slide off the bed at any moment. “This what you wanted? Should we keep you ready for me all the time?”

If he couldn’t feel Eliot behind his  _ eyeballs _ Quentin would have argued that this was probably what  _ Eliot _ wanted. Focused more on the delicious friction of Eliot’s cock pressing against his prostate and Quentin’s dick trapped between their stomachs, wetly spitting out precome every time he caught sight of it--Quentin decided to let bygones be bygones.

“Move for me. Fuck yourself, come on.” Eliot’s hands gripped him tightly and lifted Quentin a few inches off his dick, sending them both into moans at the slick glide and the  _ sound  _ of it all.

Thighs burning, Quentin lifted himself up and down as best he could in small jerky movements, only letting the last few inches of Eliot’s cock go before dropping back down like he couldn’t bear to part with it. Crazy, wild sounds kept pouring out of his lungs every time he bottomed out as the tension grew inside him, he practically spilled all over Eliot’s stomach when the other man’s huge hands landed on his ass and pried his cheeks apart till Quentin felt every brush of the air on the  _ mess _ he’d become.

Quentin was so turned on he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, wanted to be so used up that when this was over that they had to call the whole thing off and burn these sheets. Wanted Eliot to leave him like this panting at the foot of the bed while he went to shower and come back later when he was ready to go again and Quentin would be  _ so good.  _ Really--he would. Over and over until he couldn’t go again and  _ then _ still give it the old college try.

“El--” Quentin somehow managed, the breath pushed out of him on the downstroke of a thrust. “Touch me--please. I need you.”

“Yeah--yes. Here.” Eliot’s right hand wrapped around his dick and Quentin went  _ wild with it.  _ Spine bowing, scrambling at the headboard with the sudden touch after so long. He hissed in overstimulation, shaking his head. “What? Tell me--”

Quentin shook his head, “Collar--there. Please.”

Eliot pulled him in close, two fingers hooked into the D-ring of the collar and that simple  _ tug _ was like a riptide pulling Quentin bodily. He panted into Eliot’s mouth, ended up mostly licking across the stubble of his cheek instead of into Eliot’s mouth. He was Eliot’s to move wherever he wanted, wearing his collar, made to be good and warm and messy for him.

“Are you gonna come for me?” Eliot asked.

Quentin nodded. “I’m gonna--yes.”

“Ask me for it.”

Somehow able to still roll his eyes, “El--please can I come? Waited so long. You feel so good, you’re so big. Want your come. Do it.  _ Please!” _

“Give it to me, baby.” Eliot let out a feral growl, his hand tightening on Quentin’s ass, guiding him faster on trembling thighs. “Gonna come in you. Oh my god, you’re so hot--such a slut for me. Love it. Only you, Q.” Quentin nodded along with his nonsense, eyes falling closed.

“Gonna come.” Quentin cried out, redoubling his efforts as he tried not to fall off Eliot's lap from the peculiar dichotomy of sticky-slick sweat doting his skin and shiny lube just absolutely coating Eliot’s thighs. “I’m gonna--fuck.  _ Jesus.” _

Quentin whimpered, grew somehow silent and twitchy all over as his balls drew up painfully and he spilled between them untouched, so high a fleck of it caught him in the chin. He shook with the intensity of it all, falling back down squarely on Eliot’s dick with a disconcerting wet smack of skin on skin.

“There you go--so pretty when you come.” Eliot’s voice was somehow incredibly tender despite the fact that Eliot drew his knees up so Quentin could flop back against them, whining with overstimulation, just stuck there in his lap on his dick. Fuck, Eliot was still rocking up into him with stirring dirty grinds that felt like they were gonna rearrange his organs forever. “Open up, baby. Open your eyes. Let me see you.”

Caught somewhere between coming his brains out and falling into some kind of fever dream, Quentin blearily blinked his eyes open to Eliot’s bright eyes, toothy smile and two fingers white with his own come right there before his face. Lit up with shocky too-much pleasure, Quentin’s mouth dropped open without so much as a pause to taste the alkaline salt of his own making. Quentin moaned around Eliot’s fingers, the way his thumb and free fingers held his head steady by the cheeks, kept him in place.

“There’s my kitten.” Eliot smiled, curls of sweaty hair falling over his forehead messily. “Just let me look at you.”

Quentin tried to say  _ something-- _ he wasn’t sure what--around Eliot’s fingers, but it all came out garbled so he cut his losses and tongued the seam of them, chasing any last bit of himself. He whined at the feeling of Eliot petting over his tongue, stopping him from blurting out something embarrassing. Eliot was just  _ incandescent _ like this, sweat catching the low light of his bedroom to show the prominence of his shoulders and the slick matted down hair on his chest and heaving belly. Dropping down more onto Eliot’s long fingers till they practically touched the back of his throat, Quentin caught sight of where they were connected.

It was sort of devastating to look at. The kind of scene you wanted to look away from but  _ couldn’t. _ Like a car crash. Or a train derailment. And Quentin’s breath was punched out of him all the same as he saw his own softening dick swaying with the small thrusts Eliot made, each one like striking a match against him. He was  _ obliterated. _ That was the only word for it. Quentin was loose and sloppy there around him, hell he could  _ see _ how Eliot moved in him without an ounce of drag, how his asshole was trying to flutter tighter around Eliot. It was a lost fucking cause. Quentin was used up and whimpering again with how  _ good _ it felt to just be  _ that _ right now--just some pretty thing for Eliot to fuck from both ends.

So much so that he was wrapped up in his own brain dripping out his ears that he didn’t realize Eliot was  _ coming, _ fucking up into him with great big jolts of his hips that made his nerves feel like they were going to short out. Eliot hooked his fingers over Quentin’s teeth and pulled him in that way, so he could withdraw his fingers and wrap both of those sinewy arms around Quentin’s waist, smooshing come between them to grunt in Quentin’s ear, fingertips digging into his flesh.

He felt it, the new rush of come inside him alone with a startling arousal at Eliot marking Quentin as his, leaving a part of himself behind. Eliot held him there in the aftershocks until it was too much for both of them and Quentin cried out as Eliot pulled him off, having to clamp down on sore, useless muscles in some futile attempt to keep everything in.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” Eliot somehow had the presence of mind to console Quentin when he made a panicked noise and tried to lock his legs closed. “It’s just lube--we’ll get you cleaned up soon.”

Quentin let himself be pulled up as Eliot attempted to move him to a new position.

“Let go of the bed--you’re okay.” Eliot said, peeling Quentin’s stiff fingers from the headboard as he tried to move him onto his back. Quentin nodded and let go, let himself be laid down on his back a little ways away from the natural disaster level oil spill that was their bed. After so long up on his knees, the change in perspective made it feel kind of like the whole  _ world  _ had flipped on its axis.

Quentin couldn’t  _ speak _ so much as bat his hands at Eliot in a motion he hoped conveyed,  _ ‘I can’t feel my legs or my butt, help.’ _

“Catch your breath,” Eliot scooted down the bed, dropping a heavy hand over Quentin’s stomach. The weight helped him focus on trying to slow his breathing. “You did so well for me, kitten. Perfect. It’s all over now. Are you okay?”

Quentin nodded, feeling like every cell in his body had been filled up with helium and he should have been bumping up against the ceiling. Fizzy Lifting Drinks and such. His mouth was gummy and dry.

“Do you have any words, baby?” Eliot asked. Quentin shook his head, nuzzled in closer to Eliot as come totally spilled out of him and across the back of his thigh. He hid.

“That’s alright. Totally normal.” Eliot stroked his sweaty hair back from his face. “Take some time. You’re so good for me. My perfect kitten.”

Quentin wiggled til his head was under Eliot’s chin, his ear to Eliot’s chest to hear the  _ thump, thump, thump  _ of his heart. It lulled his eyes closed and he let himself drift off for a while.

Eventually he could move again and motion to one of the glasses of water on Eliot’s side of the bed, “Careful, two hands maybe.” Eliot said, handing over the glass. Bashfully, Quentin took the glass with two hands and brought it to his lips, the cool water felt amazing going down.

“Are you back with me?” Eliot asked, eyes darting all over Quentin in question.

Quentin nodded, “Still a little out of it.” he said, probably not convincing anyone because he felt like he was high as balls.

Somehow Eliot bullied him into the bathroom and set some kind of Mary Poppins cleaning magic on the bedroom as he shut them into the bathroom with it’s clawfoot tub taking up half the space. Eliot got him a towel to sit on the closed toilet seat--otherwise he would have slid off the plastic and onto the floor--and started the bath, throwing in some bubbles because  _ grown men like bubbles sometimes. _

“Hold on--” Eliot had to stop him as Quentin went to step in after a perfunctory cleaning spell to take care of the worst of the mess. “Don’t want to get this wet.” Eliot moved to take off the collar so they wouldn’t ruin it.

Quentin had to stop himself from whimpering something about how they could just charm the collar into being waterproof but that required  _ time. _ So instead he kept his mouth shut as Eliot unbuckled it and set it down on the counter beside his shaving kit.

The water felt heavenly on his tired muscles, even better when Eliot moved to join him in the bath that  _ had _ to have some kind of expansion spell on it if Eliot could stretch his legs out completely alongside Quentins when he settled in behind him.

“That was--good.” Quentin said, like he could somehow distill one of the most intense experiences of his life down to three words. Eliot hummed, his cheek against Quentin’s temple. “Really good. You were good.”

“That’s good.” Eliot snorted.

“Sorry-- _ Professor. _ ” Quentin gathered Eliot’s arms up around him in the tub, holding them there. “I liked it.  _ A lot. _ It wasn’t what I thought it would be like-- _ I _ wasn’t how I thought.”

“You weren’t expecting to be such a brat, were you?” Eliot’s nose was in his periphery.

“I like being told what to do.” Quentin shrugged, sending little ripples across the surface. “Except when I’m  _ supposed _ to, I guess. You’re excellent at keeping me on task, by the way.”

“What a labor of love that is.” Eliot joked, but his words were soft. “I like you like that, that you have fire in you. You always do. Wanna do it again sometime?”

“Are you fucking kidding me, I’d hop out of this tub right now if I thought my legs could carry me--of course I want to again.” Quentin splashed a little in his quest to turn around to look Eliot in the eye. “Now that I know you get all  _ ‘I’m gonna make you be good’  _ and calling me slutty--which I wasn’t  _ really _ prepared to identify so heavily with, but yeah, go ahead and call a slut a slut--”

“Slow  _ down.”  _ Eliot shushed him. “There’s time.”

“Okay--but like, you  _ are _ gonna spank me at some point, right?”

“Oh my god! Can you just let me  _ pace _ myself?”

They ended up having to magic up the water that splashed over the edge of the tub as once again Quentin found himself in Eliot lap.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said this fic wouldn't contain anything I would consider pet play? Well, I'm walking that back. 
> 
> There is a discussion at the end of this chapter about incorporating pet play into Eliot and Quentin's scenes. The next chapter will feature this heavily as will the rest of the fic, so if this bothers you, thank you so much for joining us this far and I will understand if you do not continue! That being said, I think in this instance the wearing of a tail/ears is more about Quentin connecting with the time he was a cat, which was something he really enjoyed and Eliot is very supportive of this! 
> 
> Thank you so much for your support and comments on this fic so far, I'm so genuinely excited to share the rest of the story with you as I write it!

“This is categorically unfair  _ and _ I think, like, a violation of my civil liberties!” Quentin argued, though it really held no weight when Eliot just rolled his eyes at him and released the hands holding Quentin upright so he had no choice but to roll onto his back like a dead pillbug with an  _ “Oof!” _

_“Poor baby.”_ Eliot said, totally condescending, hands flitting all over Quentin. Eliot checked the ropes for about the twelfth time since he’d tied them a few minutes ago.

When Eliot had said “Ready for me to tie you up?” that morning before class, after a particularly long and  _ annoying _ week of school,  _ this  _ hadn’t been what Quentin was expecting. He’d gone through the day thinking about it. All the opportunities to strain against ropes and feel himself being restrained.

The reality didn’t live up to the expectation.

He was trapped on his back with his ankle tied to his thigh on one side, anchored to a rope that ran behind him to the other side, where he’d been given the same treatment. The rope behind his back making it impossible to close his legs, which  _ was  _ kinda sexy but not like  _ this. _ The effect was  _ not _ unlike the time that Julia had brought him to yoga under the guise of helping him find ways to relieve his anxiety and Quentin had ended up in ‘Happy Baby’ pose, absolutely praying that he wasn’t gonna fart or anything.

And  _ now _ he was stuck like that in his own  _ bed. _ In his underwear.

He’d been hoping for something like the Tumblrs (no judgement) he’d looked up out of curiosity since they’d first brought this up--since Quentin realized he’d basically never come as hard in his life as when Eliot had told him he couldn’t move his hands from the wrought iron headboard and somehow Quentin had  _ listened. _ Since it had become apparent that getting held down was a real  _ kick _ to his hindbrain. But instead of tying Quentin up like a present, all intricate and compact and  _ fussy _ with criss-crossing purple ropes--or whatever color Eliot picked because it  _ suited his complexion-- _ or to the bedposts by the wrists and ankles until he was all stretched out and there for the taking--Eliot had tied a simple harness around his chest and shoulders so he  _ couldn’t raise his fucking arms _ , plus subjected him to the  _ happy baby treatment. _

_ He wasn’t happy about it. _

“What is even the point of this is I can just touch myself? See--” Quentin dropped a hand over his mostly soft dick through his underwear. Eliot had put out briefs for him to wear after his shower. And  _ that _ had been a bit of a punch to that loud part of his brain, just putting them on while Eliot worked his hands over the ropes, checking them over for any fraying like there was nothing particularly weird about either of their behaviors.

“The  _ point.”  _ Eliot huffed, taking Quentin’s hand and holding it between both of his own as he sat on the edge of the bed beside Quentin like he was visiting Quentin’s bedside and had  _ terrible news _ . “Is to tempt you into doing it so you can be  _ good _ and wait for me. Alright?”

Quentin sighed, wiggling down into the bed, his feet bobbing around in the air.

“Alright.” Quentin shrugged.

“Are you comfortable?” Eliot asked.

Quentin nodded, blushing already at the feeling of the ropes holding his arms close in to his sides and the thick banding of ropes figure-eighting around his ankles and thighs. Having his legs this close to his chest reminded him of when Eliot would fold him up like this in the middle of sex. A pleasant heaviness in his limbs and he couldn’t stop flexing his toes. “As much as I can be. It was pretty hot watching you tie these.”

“Yeah?” Eliot asked, scooting closer. He dropped Quentin’s hand in favor of running up and down his shin. Quentin smiled at the warm friction of Eliot’s palm against his skin. “Had to practice on myself a bit for the legs, Crash Restraint tutorials are helpful.”

“Like I said--that’s hot.” Quentin tried to wiggle closer, it was no use. “You should do this if you’re gonna spank me--make it so I can’t get away.”

Eliot ran his tongue over his teeth, switching to using his nails lightly against Quentin’s legs. He shivered at the light sting of it. What could he say--anytime Eliot so much as slapped him on the ass Quentin went low power mode in the best way possible. Their brief  _ collarless _ experiments with spankings had been deemed a categoric success, leaving both of them wrung out and horny enough to fuck twice after.

“You’re so full of ideas, aren’t you, baby?”

“Well, you know I did  _ research.” _ Quentin shrugged, a little smug for a guy with little use in any of his limbs.

“Well, that’s sweet--but I have different plans for you tonight.” Eliot turned and gathered up his collar from the bedside table where a couple bottles of Gatorade--because Eliot had done his  _ own _ research and had been deeply put out to discover he hadn’t offered Quentin a sugary beverage during aftercare until recently--lube, safety shears, and a new butt plug were all waiting for whatever it was Eliot had  _ planned. _ “You want to know so that brain of yours can start plotting against me?”

“Yeah--you need a good f-foil.” Quentin said, though the effect was kinda lost when he stammered with Eliot’s switching to the other leg, raising up little red lines where his nails passed over.

“Right. Whatever you say.” Eliot nodded. “I think you can be good for me. I do, Quentin. You just like fighting me until you get it through that head of yours that you chose to be mine.”

He had. Quentin liked it--being Eliot’s. Being his to play with when it was like this and the collar was in play. Being his boyfriend who held his hand and obnoxiously bragged about how good the drinks were at their parties to anyone who would listen. Being there with him when they fell into each other’s arms and Eliot fucked him with his huge dick until he short circuited Quentin’s legs. 

But he also liked playing the brat, being  _ made _ to be good--letting himself be a sharp-edged little know-it-all when they were like this. It just made the part where he cracked open and lost all ability to be anything  _ other _ than Eliot’s plaything--his ‘good boy’--all the sweeter for the struggle it took to get there. He didn’t want it all the time. It burned off a lot the tension he carried around, eased the weight on his chest being made to let go like that. Quentin swore he walked around with a dopey smile on his face for so long after the first time he put the collar on that Penny had finally said,  _ “Alright, who replaced Coldwater with a golem? He’s freaking me out.” _

And instead of going all growly and pinch-faced Quentin had just laughed and rolled his eyes because if Penny couldn’t handle Quentin at his ‘Taylor Swift’, he didn’t deserve him at his ‘coming his brains out because Eliot said he could’. He just didn’t.

“Yeah--you’re right.” Quentin said, raising an eyebrow. “So tell me what you have planned?” He wiggled his toes.

“You’re gonna do your little party trick for me, Q.” Eliot smiled. “Remember when you told me how wet you’d get with something in you?” Quentin nodded, stomach swooping at the implication,  _ fuck. _ “Can you do that like this?” Another nod, mouth suddenly devoid of all moisture. Fuck he was  _ thirsty. _ “Well, you’ve got one job tonight, sweetie. You’re gonna take yourself to the edge without touching yourself over and over. And when you get right there, you’re gonna tell me that you’re close. And  _ stop. _ But you aren’t allowed to talk otherwise.” Quentin’s mouth dropped open; this was  _ awful.  _ “If you touch your dick--or anywhere that isn’t  _ right here _ , don’t get tricky--” he picked up Quentin’s hands and put them crossed demurely over his waist, “If you try to beg me, or come without permission; you’ll be punished.”

“You’re a sadist.” Quentin’s hands gripped his sides in an effort not to  _ already _ reach out to Eliot. This was fucking  _ tough. _ Much more complicated than the few times Eliot had put the collar on him to have Quentin suck his dick or cuddle him--though that one time had mostly resulted in Quentin petulantly  _ not _ allowed to come at all and somehow fucking loving it despite a serious case of blue balls on a Thursday evening. “You actually expect me to be able to hold off like that, why wouldn’t I just come and deal with the consequences?”

“Aww,” Eliot cupped his face and ran a tender thumb over his cheekbone. “Because I don’t want you to. Because if you willfully break my rules I’ll blindfold you, leave you alone in here to think about what you’ve done while I step into the other room, and I won’t even let you so much as  _ watch _ me jerk off. Because you don’t deserve it.”

And  _ that-- _ that was the crux of it. He wanted to earn Eliot’s praise, his pleasure. 

_ But.  _ Quentin also wanted what  _ he _ wanted.

Thus--ooey, gooey, delicious sexual conflict.

Eliot got off on it. “I like it that you’re an asshole, do that  _ more.” _ Quentin had said, when Eliot had looked up with worry in his eyes after he’d pulled away from Quentin for the third time. Legs shaking after being made to just  _ stand there _ and quietly let Eliot blow him against the bedroom door, Quentin told him he needed him to be the one to deny him because it felt so much better when he finally got what he wanted. Eliot had just taken one of Quentin’s legs and thrown it over his shoulder to eat him out with abandon till Quentin had  _ literally _ fallen over.

“So tell me what you’re gonna do.” Eliot said, scooting up further onto the bed with the collar still in his hand. Quentin wished he would just put it  _ on _ him, this felt a little too much like being at an experimental yoga class otherwise. He knew how to do this the other way. Being a brat to Eliot without the collar on just felt like he was trying to pick a fight with his boyfriend. Which  _ wasn’t  _ the case. He was trying to pick a fight with the guy who was gonna make him edge himself into oblivion.  _ There was a difference. _

“I’m  _ definitely  _ not gonna disobey you,  _ Professor _ .” Quentin said, just to watch the way Eliot’s eyes slipped closed with an annoyed sigh. The man had made his bed, now he had to tie his boyfriend up in it. “I’m going to do the thing--it’s actually called an energy orgasm?--and tell you when I’m about to come, that's when I have to stop. And I’m  _ sure _ you’ll do something at that point.”

Eliot gave him a pass on that little comment at the end. Bummer.

“And what are the rules?”

“Keep my hands to myself,” Quentin squeezed his sides in demonstration. “I’m not allowed to talk or beg you to come. Or come without permission I’m assuming?” His voice lifted at the end, extrapolating that if he wasn't allowed to  _ ask _ or beg to come--he’d have to wait for Eliot to tell him he could. Eliot confirmed this with a quiet nod. “I follow your orders and use my safeword if anything doesn’t feel right. Do I get anything if I’m good?”

Eliot widened his eyes like  _ what in the world have I gotten myself into? _

“Getting to come isn’t enough for you? You’re that greedy?” Eliot asked. Quentin nodded. “Fine--I’ll spank you if you’re good. Maybe that’s enough motivation for you. Wow, I’m so  _ magnanimous. _ You should thank me.”

_ Asshole. _

“Thank you, King Eliot, for the opportunity. Really, it’s an honor.” He deadpanned.

Eliot stared him down for about ten seconds before reaching over and tickling the bottom of Quentin’s foot until he was shaking, struggling against the ropes calling out, “Fuck! Okay! I’m sorry!” and only relented with Quentin was red-faced and panting, trying to bodily roll himself over onto his side to get away.

“Are you ready to be good yet?” Eliot asked. Quentin winced as Eliot’s hand approached him again, only to sigh when it dropped down over his dick, rubbing up and down along the shaft, moving the fabric back and forth over him, getting him hard. “If you can manage it. Maybe I’ll let you come again later.”

Quentin bit back some remark about  _ letting _ him do anything and instead said, “I think I’d enjoy it much more if you  _ make me  _ come again--just a suggestion?” He shrugged and tried to look cute. You know, as cute as a guy could look with his knees up around his armpits and a rope harness around his chest and shoulders--which was pretty damn cute.

Once this was over, he wanted Eliot to go back to that shop in SoHo and take some more classes, he could feel it in his bones that he was a rope bunny.

“We’ll see what I want from you.” Eliot squeezed his dick just to watch the way Quentin gasped and tried to skitter away but  _ couldn’t. _ Okay--that was pretty nice. The being stuck part. Eliot could do whatever he wanted to him. Instead, he was going to make him do it to  _ himself. _ “Are you ready to put your collar on?”

“Yes.” Quentin nodded.

“Ask me for it.”

_ Jesus Christ. _

“Will you please put my collar on for me?” Quentin squeezed himself around the middle at the words, at the shiver of embarrassment that went swooping through his belly.

“When I put this on, who do you belong to?” Eliot asked, working his fingers over the buckle to undo it.

The heat in his stomach traveled up into his cheeks and spilled out everywhere, delicious and  _ thrilling. _ “I belong to you, Sir.” the word slipped out and he balked. He wasn’t supposed to be  _ that easy. _

Eliot blinked at him, there with his impeccable posture in his charcoal pants and damask waistcoat, purple eyeliner smudged under his eyes, making the green of them look otherworldly. He dropped the collar on the bed and settled both hands on Quentin’s knees, using them to lean against as he dropped down over his prone body. Quentin shrank as much as he could back against the bed, ropes pulling as his shoulders rose up around his ears.

“You want a take back?” Eliot asked, maybe only a  _ little  _ jokingly.

“No--uh,” Quentin’s voice rose a few octaves, “I don’t think I do. Hmm.”

“Whatever you want, alright?” Eliot reminded him.

“Yeah--but if that were the case--”

He didn’t get to finish that sentence as Eliot covered his mouth with a hand.

“Don’t ruin it, I’m basking in the Dickensian Orphan of it all.”

So Quentin  _ didn’t _ ruin it and stayed quiet all the while thinking about how unsexy that was.

“Just put the collar on me so I have reason to say stupid shit, please?” Quentin asked once Eliot had lifted his hand.

“Alright, so when the collar goes on--we’re shutting this,” Eliot dropped a finger over Quentin’s lips. “Well I guess it can be open but you aren’t allowed to talk.”

_ “Come on.”  _ Quentin groaned behind that finger, feeling it buzz with the vibration of his voice, skittering down his spine and making his lips a little numb. “I’ll say ‘Giraffe’ if it’s too much--I know that.”

“I’m a just and fair ruler.” Eliot sighed to himself, finally,  _ finally _ reaching over for the collar so he could buckle it onto Quentin’s neck. Which was  _ a little _ awkward considering he was stuck on his back so Eliot had to fasten it to the front then slide the buckle to the back, the metal sliding cooly along his jaw and neck until Eliot was happy with it’s positioning.

After half a dozen times, he really hadn’t gotten over the trip that was Eliot leaning away and leaving behind the weight of the collar resting across his neck. Quentin had acclimated to the sensation of the actual restriction, the gentle way the soft suede cupped his throat and the D-ring warming against his skin. It was the implication that it meant he was Eliots that rattled his bones and had him daydreaming to let his life just drift away til there was nothing but this.

Quentin vaguely wondered if any of his old therapists would have clocked BDSM as a coping mechanism for him, and felt this entitled him to ask for a refund of all his copays for the last six years.

“Can I touch you?” Eliot asked. “Will you be able to focus if I do?”

Quentin opened his mouth to answer and thought better of it, shrugging. He really didn’t know. He’d only ever done this for an audience once, and Eliot hadn’t touched him then.

_ But then, where was Chekhov’s Buttplug? _

Quentin looked pointedly from Eliot to the bedside table, like  _ ‘Isn’t there something you’re forgetting?’ _

Eliot furrowed his eyebrows, the corners of his mouth turning down, then, “Oh!” he patted Quentin casually on the thigh and reached over for the plug. It was black, kinda boring and utilitarian as far as buttplugs went, but there was a nice little bend at the end to press against his prostate. Eliot had to know this would have him leaking like a new tube of toothpaste left on the counter. “Good thing you’re here to remind me of how much you want to be filled up.” Quentin’s mouth dropped into a thin line, he should have known that was coming--true as it may be. “I picked this one because it’s thicker at the base, since I want to watch you clench around it.”

_ What a prince. _

Quentin didn’t even  _ manage _ to think about how Eliot was going to manage to get that thing inside him before the man was just pulling the crotch of Quentin’s underwear aside--so that it kinda cut into his butt in a way that wasn’t  _ totally _ unpleasant--and yeah, that had to be the point of  _ Happy Baby,  _ he was totally exposed. Couldn’t have been worse unless he’d bent over the bed and spread himself.

Eliot liked to take his time on things; his hair, selecting the perfect dinner party menu, fingering his boyfriend open, et cetera. So Quentin shouldn’t have been surprised when Eliot spent long, torturous minutes just rubbing one  _ and then two _ lube slick fingertips over his asshole until Quentin’s head hit the bed, rolling back with the hypnotic touch of his fingers around and around.

He worked one, and then two fingers into Quentin, stopping here and there to add more lube. Quentin didn’t have to look up to know that meant that Eliot was just appreciating him for those long moments where his one hand left to pump more from the bottle and the other remained there, fingers curled under the elastic of his underwear, pulling it aside. His dick had  _ fully _ made an escape at some point, flopping out from under the side of his underwear, twitching against his stomach with every slow prod of Eliot’s fingers in and out, twisting this way and that to open him up.

Eventually when Eliot’s fingers pulled away and came back holding the blunt, matte-soft latex of the plug, Quentin jolted and the ropes gave a weak groan as they pulled tighter against his thighs.

“You’re okay,” Eliot said. Both hands occupied, Quentin felt the unmistakable plush press of Eliot’s lips to his kneecap--ticklish against his leg hair. “Open up for me. Come on.”

After a long, leisurely fingering, taking the plug was fairly simple. Though not nearly as big as Eliot, it did widen nicely and the base was thicker than the  _ one _ other plug Quentin had used before--he’d lost it somewhere between Julia’s and Brakebills in the move--he clenched down around it experimentally and then remembered  _ Eliot was right there.  _ So he did it again. The stretch was delicious, even better was Eliot’s hand reaching up to massage his balls, prod at his perineum with vaguely slick fingertips until Quentin let out a long, low moan and tossed his head from side to side. His prostate lit up again and again with the movement of his hips. It wasn’t the long slide of Eliot against that place, like a bow on violin strings, but a little percussive force, there and gone over and over.

“Alright, are you comfortable?” Eliot asked. “You can answer me. Be  _ polite.” _

Who knew there was so much etiquette involved in sex?

“I’m fine.” Quentin cleared his throat. Eliot brought over a glass of water with a straw and held it to his lips. Quentin took a grateful sip. 

He hadn’t really wanted to have to worry about having to pee like this so he’d skipped out on pretty much anything but coffee that day. He was probably gonna wake up tomorrow with a wicked headache.

“Anything pinching?” Eliot asked.

“Nothing,” Quentin said, like he hadn’t told Eliot that half a dozen times when he was tying the ropes, so careful that he didn’t pull any of Quentin’s leg hair while calling him ‘Little Squatch’. Quentin had threatened to safeword right there. “No pinching. N-nothing’s numb.”

“If it is, I want you to safeword, I’ll get you out of there.”

“Yeah, you’ll use your weird ER scissors?” Quentin smirked up at him.

“Exactly.” Eliot nodded. He wasn’t joking or trying to be sexy at all--Eliot really wasn’t serious about anything that wasn’t Quentin. And that was a huge fucking turn on, that he wanted Quentin safe, that he’d bought weird scissors that were dull on the ends but could cut the ropes tying him up when they were  _ magicians _ totally capable of a quick tut that would have sliced the ropes clean through in an instant. “Okay, we’re gonna get started then. You just have to work yourself up for me. I’ll tell you to stop when you're close.” Eliot’s hand clasped one of his ankles around the ropes, dulling the sensation. “No talking, no begging, keep your hands  _ right here for me.” _

Quentin nodded, taking that as indication the ‘no talking’ thing started right then. He closed his eyes and squirmed at the realization that Eliot was gonna leave the underwear like they were, pulled to the side, stuck now because they were firmly locked on the other side of his balls. That was just  _ worse than being totally naked _ , on display like some kind of desperate slut, because that’s how Eliot wanted him.

This was something he could do--he could close his eyes and deepen his breathing, work on relaxing his body from the feet up, until the ropes really were truly the only things keeping him in this position. Eliot was petting him with firm, calming touches along his legs and arms, then both hands descended on his nipples to give them a sharp squeeze and Quentin’s toes curled at the jolt of pain somehow traveling straight to the core of him. He moaned, tossing his head to the side, clutching at the plug inside him as it ground against his prostate. His dick was already so wet.

“I couldn’t help myself,” Eliot said, voice cutting through the void Quentin had created, the thrumming beginning of need for release. Quentin whined, wanting it again, unable to ask for it. He blinked his eyes open and pushed his shoulders harder into the bed, trying to make Eliot see where he wanted his attention, lower lip pushing out. “Sure you want me to play with these? I know how sensitive you are, kitten.”

Quentin nodded, eyes slipping closed again as he worked himself up.

It took a long time, opening himself up to wanting to come, clearing his mind of anything else but his body and now  _ Eliot _ touching him, which was new. He’d tried to explain it to Eliot before--some genius had figured out that if you clenched your pelvic floor muscles in time with your breathing it would start to feel  _ really good. _ Like all over. And if you  _ kept doing it _ over and over, contracting harder and harder it somehow got even  _ better.  _ Quentin realized he was panting and letting his hips grind down like there was some invisible lover above him, that energy building and bubbling like sugar on the stove, sticking to everything all hot and burning.

Quentin tingled all over, from the backs of his thighs all lit up and pressed to his calves, to his stomach trembling with every breath, moving his arms up and down over top, to his nipples all sore and aching from attention until suddenly his world zeroed in on hot warmth quenching him, Eliot's tongue and  _ teeth _ playing wickedly over the bud in his mouth. A contraction seized Quentin, muscles locking up around the plug, trapping him there in a wave of pleasure that neither crested nor diminished.

“ _ Ah--”  _ Quentin’s mouth dropped open with a sound of desperation. Eliot’s hand covered his stomach, spread wide, pressing his arms down--Quentin’s nails dug into the skin of his ribs. “I’m close!”

Eliot’s mouth lifted off his chest. “That’s good--stop now.” Eliot commanded, his voice cutting through the pleasure somehow. Quentin panted, forcing himself to relax back down, still his hips to stop the plug from rocking against his prostate, to not chase that tingling sensation all the way to release.

Quentin was panting like he’d just returned from an early morning run, sweat drying against his temples, his upper lip.

“Open your eyes, kitten.” Eliot said and there was nothing to do but  _ open his eyes _ if that’s what Eliot wanted.

Quentin was left there staring up at him from the bed, at Eliot’s sleeves rolled up to the forearms, the collar of his shirt open at the neck somehow now, the warmth of his eyes and that  _ smile _ that only Quentin got to see when he was just tickled pink at something.

“Look at yourself.”

Quentin’s abs clenched hard as he lifted his head shakily to look down his body, Eliot’s hand reaching out to cup his head, relieve some of that tension when he began to shake from the small effort with no other way to support his core. He was staring right down the barrel, so to speak, right at his own cockhead--watching the little hole there wink as watery precome oozed out of him and continued to gather on his stomach with that plug inside him, pushing it all out. He groaned, eyes nervously flying up to Eliot’s face at the shame of just how wet he already was. There was a pool of it gathering in his belly button, seeping over his sides of his stomach and trailing down the gutter of  _ legs  _ where they were stuck so close to his body. It was wicking into the underwear, turning them dark grey all over.

It should have been disconcerting how gross that was.

It wasn’t.

“I’m gonna milk you dry one day.” Eliot said, punching the breath right out of Quentin with just a few words. He fell limply back into Eliot’s hand, let himself be set back down on the bed, tried to get his breathing under control again. “Would you like that?” he asked. Quentin nodded, turning his face into his shoulder, eyes dropping closed before he could stop them. “You’ll get it, don’t worry. But only if you’re a really good boy for me. Good boys get to come, remember? So if you get to come that much, you have to be on your  _ best _ behavior.”

Quentin whined, spine rolling against the bed as much as he could. He could--would show Eliot how good he’d be. Do it just for him.

“Alright, pretty boy.” Eliot patted him gently on the thigh. Quentin let out a tight-lipped whimper, eyebrows pinching together as he realized what was going to happen next. “Do it again for me--”

\--------

“Drink some water for me, there we go--”

The cool rush of water slipped down Quentin’s throat, the straw pulled away from his lips as he lay there panting--once again--eyes unable to focus on the ceiling. Twinkle lights popping off and on with the beat of his heart.

“Quentin, check in with me.”

And a hand touched his chin, cool with condensation, tilting his head over and  _ there--there Eliot was.  _ Where had he been? He sounded like he was underwater, spitting out bubbles, bobbing against the tile pool bottom.

“Baby--” Fingers stroked over his cheek, Quentin’s eyes drifted closed at the touch. “You’re really far down for me, aren’t you?”

No--he was floating, up off the bed somehow, but still  _ heavy? _

Quentin managed a smile, turning more into the touch of Eliot’s hand on his cheek, its summer warmth seeping into his bones. Like chlorophyll, turning it into energy.

“You’ve been  _ so _ unbelievably good for me.” Eliot said, nose nearly pressed to Quentin’s, stretched out on the bed beside him smelling like clean linen and citrus. “You held yourself back four times now, and I'm so  _ proud _ of you for managing it, Kitten. But I think you’ve tired yourself out now. So how about I take over?”

There was nothing he could say, nowhere he could go, nowhere he wanted to  _ be _ more than right here, letting Eliot take care of him. Letting Eliot rise up all giant, ruffling a hand through Quentin’s hair and down his chest, to his trembling stomach, muscles exhausted from working himself up to coming--even when he’d huffed and cried at some point before and Eliot brought him a washcloth and made him stop until he could breathe without it stuttering in his chest. Told him it was okay because he was trying so hard to be good, even if it was frustrating. Which just made Quentin cry  _ harder. _

“Look at you, letting me take care of you.” Eliot stroked his hands down Quentin’s body, squeezing the tight muscles of his thighs with deftness, then  _ sweeping back up, _ pressing his hips down into the bed all high above him. And Quentin just  _ went. _ “Such a good, sweet boy because I know what’s best for you. I know you deserve this.”

Quentin’s mouth dropped open, face going slack at finally feeling Eliot’s hand on his dick. After so long, laying there twitching up and slapping back down against his stomach, crying out for attention, Quentin moaning while the waves built and built--Eliot like the tide, pulling in and pushing away. His liquid eyes fixed on Quentin’s face as he stroked him. Despite the raw sensitivity, Quentin gave himself over, didn’t have anything in him to do anything but just submit to whatever it was Eliot wanted.

“You’re going to come for me, Quentin.” Eliot said, hand pumping up and down slowly--his thumb crossing over the head in a wake of pleasure that made his toes curl. His other hand cradling Quentin’s balls, testing the weight of them. “Whenever you're ready. Come for me. You’ve been so good. Let me see you claim your reward.”

His body, tricked so many times into nearly cresting that wave, seemed to build and build infinitely before it  _ finally _ came crashing down. Quentin couldn’t writhe with it, the bands of rope around him, his arms across his waist, Eliot’s  _ gaze _ pinning him down and so all the pleasure had nowhere to go but to just pinball through him wildly. Mouth dropping open in a silent shout, Quentin’s body contracted again and  _ again. _ His limbs  _ tugged at him _ wildly, his right side growing tighter and tighter, spreading.

Eliot’s face, with its wide smile and Disney Prince cleft chin twisted and blurred around the edges, and a voice was saying something but Quentin couldn’t hear it over the rushing in his ears. As the tension left him and there was nothing but just the floating there with Eliot, his face there above Quentin’s. Quick movement beside him caused a breeze, cooling twin tear tracks falling over his temples and into his hair, the pillow beneath his head. A flash of silver streaked off the nightstand and into Eliot’s hand.

Quentin jerked with a  _ snap _ as pressure released on one side of his body. If he squinted--there was Eliot and ropes, or  _ rope,  _ one long unwinding rope coiling up on the bed as Eliot held Quentin’s foot in hand and his mouth was  _ moving _ nearly as fast as his hands were. But he was too fast to interpret. And at the same moment with a plop and a bounce, Quentin’s other foot hit the bed, the line behind his back having lost its tension in an instant. His leg still bound, but free to move at the hip.

Eliot quickly got one leg unwrapped, now somehow sitting with Quentin’s calf in his lap, thumbs pressing into this  _ rock _ under his skin that was moving and  _ twisty. _ First his voice was like rain on the other side of the window--Quentin knew what it was but couldn’t make out the drops of it pattering outside. Quentin couldn’t move his arms away to open the window, take a look at what was happening.

Quentin blinked. One moment Eliot was there at the foot of the bed, face  _ pinched _ and kneading his leg--the next; the door the bedroom was cracked, Eliot standing on one side of it, speaking to someone, a warm blanket was draped over Quentin and  _ Todd was speaking. _

“Any time man--it’s fine. I can buy more.” Todd’s chipper voice like a bell clanging in Quentin’s brain.  _ Fuck,  _ his head hurt.

“Thanks, you’re a real prince.” Eliot closed the door with a snap and returned with  _ bananas.  _ A whole bunch of them. He dropped them on the foot of the bed in his rush back over to sit at Quentin’s hip. “Hey,  _ hey _ are you okay?”

Quentin swallowed, mouth dry. He went to speak and cleared his throat. ”Bananas--” was all he could manage to string together. “Ow.” he added a moment later.

Eliot cracked open a Gatorade and brought a straw to his lips. It was blue--blue was the best flavor. Quentin drank and drank despite the fact that it was tepid and not really that appealing until Eliot pulled the bottle back, half empty now.

“I think you had a muscle cramp,” Eliot busied himself beside the bed, shaking out a pill bottle that had Quentin groaning from the sound. Eliot stopped, “Can you tell me how you feel? Sore? Headache? Nerve pain? I’m guessing here--nearly took you to medical.”

Quentin shook his head wildly even if it hurt like crazy in his brain. “No--don’t take me there.” he swallowed again, missing the feeling of the collar against his throat. “Hey--where is it?” He tried to scoot up onto his elbows but his core wouldn’t hold him, so Quentin spilled back down onto the bed.

“Quentin--” Eliot said, command in his voice and that cut through the panic. “It’s right here. On the bedside table. I took it off and cleaned you up when you passed out. It’s okay. Tell me how you feel, that’s an order.”

But how could it be an order when Eliot looked so worried? That’s not what he  _ did. _ He was the one who knew what to do, who owned him. He was supposed to do  _ everything. _

Quentin sniffed, the tickly feeling of tears there at the back of his throat all metallic, “My head hurts. I’m shaky. Cold. My leg’s sore. I don’t even know if I actually even  _ came. _ I’m  _ sorry--” _

His voice crumbled on the last part and Quentin crumbled too, “Hey!  _ No, no, no.  _ It’s okay. You’re okay. Let me just--” Eliot climbed over Quentin, wrapping his long limbs around Quentin’s body, shushing him. His hair damp with sweat when he pressed his forehead to the back of Quentin’s neck.

“We’re done for now,” Eliot spoke into Quentin’s skin. “You did so well, through the whole thing. Just let me take care of you now, alright?”

As a general rule, Quentin didn’t like to be coddled unless he’d fully consented beforehand, but  _ also _ as a general rule, Eliot was good at knowing when someone really needed a good coddling. Which was apparently  _ right the fuck now.  _ So he let Eliot hold him even though they were both gross and sweaty, eventually coax him into sitting up between Eliot’s legs, back against his chest--which was apparently the opportune moment to realize that  _ along the way _ Eliot must have removed the plug, which was so vaguely horrifying that he immediately blocked it out as something to  _ never mention _ upon pain of  _ death.  _ Eliot must have cleaned him up along the way as well with a spell or a washcloth since come wasn’t currently drying all over his stomach and pubes.

Weak and kitten-like, Quentin kicked one leg out from under the blanket, appreciating the bands of red marks circling his thigh and shin, “I’m gonna rub arnica gel into those once I get you fed, okay?”

Quentin nodded, but he liked poking the ones on his thighs to feel the light bruising under his skin.

Eliot refrained from lecturing him  _ too intensely _ about the importance of hydration while Quentin was forced to eat both bananas, drink more Gatorade, and take some magnesium supplements because, “I’m 6’6” Q, I get charley horses like a motherfucker, of course I know what to do about this shit!”

And yeah, hearing Eliot talk about the importance of eating and drinking  _ before _ a scene--regardless of what kind--drove the feeling home. Never again would he knowingly risk passing the fuck out while they were doing this. Even an hour later, Eliot still had a pinched look on his face, mouth drawn into a thin line, jaw clenched.

Then came the horrifying moment when Todd knocked on the door and tentatively let them know that he’d brought up some sandwiches, and yelled “I hope you’re feeling better, Quentin!” through the door. Quentin didn’t want to know what Eliot had told him.

Todd had done more than just put together some sandwiches. Todd’s obvious high-key obsession with Eliot had resulted in him learning how to really compose a tray. Eliot returned to the bed with tea sandwiches, sliced fruit, pretzel thins with hummus, and  _ individual _ homemade bowls of chocolate mousse. Quentin’s stomach rumbled and he ended up consuming the majority of the food on the tray while Eliot sat beside him and wordlessly offered the rest of his own half eaten chocolate mousse to Quentin.

Eliot got him into the shower somehow, jumping in along with him under the guise of making sure Quentin didn’t fall and hit his head, but the acrid smell of nervous sweat filled the curtained off area once Eliot stepped inside and turned the water on. It was quickly carried away as Eliot washed them both with his Mint Mojito body wash. Quentin realized he  _ really _ must be worn out if basically being pressed up against miles and miles of Eliot’s exfoliated, slippery skin didn’t cause blood to rush to his dick but instead made Quentin just want to back Eliot into the wall under the spray and stick his head under Eliot’s chin. So he did that. They didn’t have a water bill to pay and there was seemingly no  _ end _ to the water heater of The Cottage.

Eventually, they were pruney but  _ clean _ and Eliot worked a palmful of leave-in conditioner into his own hair and then Quentin’s while standing on the bathmat, dripping all over the place. The marks on his legs were worse than his chest from all the pulling. Still, Quentin found himself turning around to see the rope marks across his back and then back around to trave them over his shoulders to where Eliot had anchored them in the center of his chest.

There was no point in arguing with Eliot once he’d decided on something, so Quentin let himself be gently guided back into the bedroom, patted dry and then laid out naked on the bed while Eliot fetched arnica gel.

“How’s your headache?”

“It pretty much went away after I ate and drank something.” Quentin shrugged. “I learned my lesson there, next time I’ll just tell you if I have to pee. And if you’re so  _ in charge,  _ you can figure out what to do.”

Eliot shook his head weakly, throwing on a silk robe from the hook by the door. “It happens. It’s a  _ bodily function. _ One I’m in no way  _ in charge of _ because that’s  _ not  _ what we’re doing. This isn’t TPE--”

“Look at you with your big fancy acronyms Mr **.** Kink for Muggles Valedictorian. Total Power Exchange. _Yeesh--that’s cold.”_ Quentin broke off, shivering from the chilly arnica gel Eliot was rubbing into his calves all over, not just in the spots where the rope marks were. “Yeah, I don’t want you to like tell me when I can pee--that’s too close to being back in school and having to raise one finger or two for the bathroom pass.” Quentin shuddered. “But I should like trust that you’d know what to do if that happened, and clearly I missed out on a spanking because I didn’t want to risk being in an embarrassing situation. So I learned my fucking lesson with that one. You could like _tell me_ what I should do to get ready for stuff like this, if I should eat something special or make sure I drink lots of water. That would be okay. I think.”

Eliot traded one leg for the other.

“Good, because that was fucking scary.” Eliot sighed. “You couldn’t  _ talk, _ and while that’s normally peak fantasy for me, rendering your speechless--how can I know that you’re  _ okay _ if you can’t tell me?” Eliot’s thumbs dug into the muscle along the back of his calf and Quentin struggled to keep his eyes from rolling back into his head at the immense pressure and then  _ release _ it left in its wake.

“I don’t know--seems like you knew by just looking at me?” Quentin said. “And you stopped and got me loose so quickly. I couldn’t feel it, I’m sure it hurt like a mother fucker, but I didn’t feel anything but like, my brain dribbling out my dick.”

“We have to work on that.” Eliot shook his head, eyes darting away. And  _ oh no, _ if Quentin didn’t head this off, it would become maudlin just  _ so quickly _ . “I need to--I’ll see if I can talk to anyone about what they do about this stuff. But it’s not enough for me to just be able to tell that something isn’t okay because I can see it. What if you hated it but you couldn’t tell me--”

“Whoa--Eliot, hey.” Quentin sat up somehow, stopping Eliot’s hands. “I didn’t hate it. I didn’t. I loved all of it. Like an alarming amount. You probably couldn’t tell because I was pretty much catatonic--no joke. This was just some freak accident. We know for next time. Risk having to get cut out of ropes to go pee--”

“--and don’t eat a huge meal right beforehand, forgot to mention that.” Eliot went to run a hand through his hair, then remember the gel, dropped it back down to hold Quentin’s ankle lightly.

“So I won’t dehydrate like Hugh Jackman or go to the Cheesecake Factory before you tie me up--that’s doable. Just tell me and I’ll give you shit about it--but I’ll do it.” Quentin’s back protested, but he was able to scrunch himself up towards Eliot up around his bent knees. “You were awesome. It means a lot that you learned all this stuff for me. And then I just show up and it’s already all  _ thought out _ and you have Gatorade and weird scissors waiting for me.”

Eliot’s mouth quirked to the side, trading Quentin’s ankle for his hand when he offered it. “Well you know how much I love surprises.”

“You love  _ planning.  _ You planned  _ your own _ surprise party, Eliot.” Quentin reminded him. “I know you gave Margo three menu options to choose from, but you still tested out the lighting yourself, I know you did.” Eliot let out one, solitary amused,  _ ‘Hmm’ _ at the memory. “So if you need to do that with me--if you want to plan something but need to know that I’m ready or whatever, just tell me what I need to do beforehand. Because I won’t think to do it myself. I won’t. Once again, I’ll give you shit about it--but you like that.”

Eliot rolled his eyes, squeezing Quentin’s hand, his thumb rubbing over the tender thin skin of his wrist.

“I wanted you to feel small again.” Eliot said. Quentin’s cheeks heated immediately. “Contained, but not trapped. Hence,  _ Happy Baby--” _

“Is it  _ actually  _ called Happy Baby?”

“Yeah--that’s what we called it in class.” Eliot’s eyes were very green in the low twinkle lights of his room and suddenly Quentin was very aware of the fold in his stomach from sitting up in bed while naked. “I know it’s probably not what you  _ wanted _ or expected _. _ But I thought it was what you  _ needed _ .”

Eliot put so much consideration into everything he did, even or  _ especially _ the frivolous things. There was always enough seating at a party if Eliot threw it, as well as food and drink pairings for different palettes and  _ definitely _ a quieter area for someone like  _ Quentin _ to get away from the noise and  _ people.  _ It was often disguised as a sexy little nook for makeouts, but makeouts just tended to happen  _ anywhere _ and thus the introverts that Eliot favored--Quentin--had a place of their own, even while outside, there was nothing but revelry. Most of the time Eliot even made sure there was a charcuterie board and cards or coffee table books to flip through if you were like Quentin and required that sort of thing to get through a simple evening of socialization.

And Quentin wasn’t sure  _ why _ it had taken him so long to figure out that sex like  _ this _ , where they weren’t just falling all over eachother on their way up the stairs--when there was a literal exchange of power--would be any different? Eliot was already so good at tending to his needs, even when Quentin’s need was to whine and complain all the way until he  _ couldn’t _ anymore and he broke open, spilling all his vulnerabilities all over the place.

So Eliot thought he needed to be  _ small, _ which was just so on the nose of things. Fuck, if Quentin  _ didn’t _ want to be trussed up to the four corners of the bed, but that was wildly different than how sex usually was. Who knew if Quentin would have been able to get out of his head enough to enjoy it or get himself off. But all scrunched up, he’d felt like Eliot was  _ there _ with him, holding his thighs back against his body, rocking into him over and over. And that’s when Quentin did feel  _ small _ and delicate while Eliot made space for himself inside. A part of Quentin just longed to be picked up and carried around so he would never worry about being underfoot. To be looked at and appreciated. To rest his head in Eliot’s lap and not  _ worry _ about literally anything for a while. Maybe even be a bit of an asshole because he could get away with it by being  _ cute. _

“It’s fucking _weird_ that I like-- _liked_ it so much, right? The fox stuff was just so stressful having to survive and worry about everyone else. And I spent a week shitting in a box which I’m somehow _shocked_ no one has teased me about--apart from Margo. But, like--” Quentin opened and closed his mouth, looked to Eliot and then quickly away at _anything_ else, which turned out to be his own folded up stomach when he cast his eyes down, “it should have been traumatizing but I’ve always just wanted a vacation from being me? I hate how much I liked it--how much I think about it _all the time._ I can’t get it out of my head. Like if a person could _choose_ to just not have to deal with the DMV and shit, why wouldn’t they? At least for a little while?”

Eliot didn’t speak for a  _ long _ moment. “Quentin--your boyfriend is a guy you literally wouldn’t have recognized seven years ago. I didn’t take a  _ break _ from my old life, I did the  _ cat thing _ full time. So to speak. Not the same thing. Somehow with  _ more _ accessories. But I don’t see the difference between what I did and what  _ you’re _ doing. I don’t have to think about my shitty parents or shitty brothers or shitty Indiana when I’m like this, because Eliot Waugh doesn’t have any of that baggage. Eliot  _ White, does. _ You want to mix it up and wear a tail--” Quentin’s  _ heart was going to explode,  _ “for a couple hours so you don’t have to think about your PA homework--what’s the fucking problem? Who does that hurt? Honestly, it seems like it’s probably a healthier coping mechanism. You’re allowed to do that.”

“I am?” Sour worry spiked in his stomach, upsetting all the sandwiches.

“Yeah, yes.” Eliot nodded.

Quentin bit down on the inside of his cheek, worrying it back and forth between his teeth so he wouldn’t exclaim something he wouldn’t be able to take back.

Finally, “You’d be okay if I did more stuff--more cat stuff? Like _ you mentioned _ having a tail and,  _ um,  _ talking to me like I’m--like I can’t,  _ huh.  _ Like I’m just--” Quentin cleared his throat, wishing he could blame it on anything other than the lump that had suddenly formed. “Like I’m just your pet?”

Even in the dim light of the room, Quentin saw the blackness of Eliot’s pupil spill over green as they dilated wildly at the question. When he spoke, his voice had dropped like a sudden bank of storm clouds on the horizon of a sunny day.

“I’d take care of you.” Eliot’s hand tightened around Quentin’s wrist and suddenly all Quentin wanted was for Eliot to take hold of the  _ other one _ too. “Dote on my pretty,  _ needy _ pet. If you’d let me. But you have to be a  _ well behaved _ kitten for me--

_ “El--” _

“Because when I show you off, I don’t want anyone to say anything but how lucky I am to have found such a sweet, affectionate pet.” Eliot said. Heat traveled through Quentin’s whole body lightning fast, compounded by the sudden racing of his heart at the  _ mention _ of something like that, of people looking at  _ him. _ Even if it was just  _ talking _ about it happening, the thought was enough to turn him on, let alone the reality. “You don’t get to skip out on punishments just because you’re spoiled and pretty. You still need discipline. Can’t have you forgetting who is in charge, can we?”

Quentin let out a hysterical chuckle. He was having a total break from reality.

He shook his head quietly. “No--I need you to make sure I’m good for you.”

“Because you like it--”

“Because I like it.” Quentin repeated. Despite the soreness in his legs and back, he felt like he could get hard again, hungry for Eliot to touch him-- _ to get his mouth on Eliot. _ “Makes me feel so good, knowing I belong to you. That you want what’s best for me because I  _ don’t.”  _ That syrupy sweetness was spilling over him with every word. “I’m yours to use however you want, so you gotta take care of me.”

“Because you can’t do it yourself.” Eliot paused, clicked his tongue, “You don’t  _ want _ to do it yourself.

Quentin shook his head, “Don’t want to do  _ anything.” _

They ended up tangled up in the bed somehow, Quentin panting and clawing at any part of Eliot he could get his hands on, legs twining with his as the other man bared down on him from above, grinding down into the cradle of Quentin’s thighs. Beard burn all down the side of his neck and clavicle, Quentin hissed and panted while Eliot held him down and sucked hickies all down his neck and across his chest until a fist pounded on the door.

_ “Quit touching butts and come downstairs! We’re setting off fireworks out back!”  _ Margo shouted through the door and then clomped back down the stairs. 

“What do you say, wanna go?” Eliot asked, somehow excited at the prospect of fireworks despite the fact that he was blood hot and leaking across Quentin’s thighs since his robe had fallen open.

“Seriously?” Quentin’s voice came out in a much higher register than he was expecting. “Now?”

“Come on--you’ll like it.” Eliot rolled to the side and sat up, hair wild as he looked down at Quentin still catching his breath on the bed. “Margo’s been working on some cool pyromancy. And I’m sure there will be a bonfire, I’ll make you a S’more. I’ll make  _ Todd _ make you a S’more. You can just sit in my lap on a lounge chair and stuff your face.”

_ “I’ll stuff your face--”  _ Quentin muttered, dropping his head back down to the bed with a groan. “I’m  _ naked,  _ I can’t believe you want me to go put clothes on now when I’m naked and hard and was  _ just  _ muttering about how much I wanted to suck your dick.”

But Eliot was already climbing off the bed, throwing sweatpants and thick socks and his green sweater back at Quentin to wear. No underwear. “We’ll socialize for an hour and a half, and if you’re  _ good _ I’ll take you back up here and let you suck my dick. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Todd, as it turned out, made  _ excellent  _ S’mores.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Subscribe to the story and my fic for updates when I post! I would love to hear what you think in the comments! Your feedback really motivates me to write more often!


	3. Chapter 3 (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good lord, I am long winded. The day I can write a sex scene that isn't over 5,000 just know I've been replaced by a pod person. Anyway, enjoy what was supposed to a short romp featuring some delayed gratification and instead grew legs and emotions. And, well--a tail.
> 
> Thank you soooooooo much to Hoko_onchi as always for the cheerleading and word doctoring on your end.

Quentin was horny and annoyed. It was all Eliot’s fault  _ really, _ for saying shit like “Hey--you got a second?” in the common room on a saturday afternoon like he needed Quentin’s opinion on which tie-pin complimented his eyes and  _ not _ because he’d seen something online and wanted to work more on his slipped half hitch. So then Quentin would end up all frustrated and yeah, he’d admit,  _ a bit bitchy  _ when all Eliot wanted to do was tie his arms back behind his head  _ or _ lay Quentin on his stomach in his pajamas for an ankles to wrist hog tie only to  _ let him go _ like a minute later right when Quentin was just relaxing into the stretch.

“Will you just  _ pick  _ something?” Quentin groused, face down in the bed again afterwards. It lost a lot of it’s edge muffled in the covers. Wrists and ankles not even sore, not even a  _ mark _ on him.

“Come on, just stay still so I can try this leg thing on you. Take off your pants.” Eliot bodily rolled Quentin over onto his back, looking far too smug with himself.

“Only if you just  _ leave it on _ for longer than two minutes. I feel like I have whiplash.” Quentin grumbled, Eliot’s hands already curled around the waistband of his pajamas and underwear, sneaking them down Quentin’s thighs. Which also, the idea of Eliot with like a riding crop? Or a flogger of some kind? It was  _ not _ unwelcome.

“I will--I will.” Eliot kissed down his leg as he moved. Skin twitching as Eliot breathed over the point of his knee. “Come on. You’ll like this.”

Feet twitching, Quentin agreed.

Quentin found they were falling more and more into this when the collar wasn’t in play, when it was just the two of them and Eliot wanted to practice. Which was  _ really good _ incentive to stick pretty close to a normal meal schedule and drink a lot of water throughout the day so he could be ready on his end for whatever Eliot wanted to try. 

So Quentin got really good at holding a book one handed while Eliot worked on his tension and knots on the other arm, learning quick releases and little tricks to keep the ropes from getting all tangled when he used long ones. It was perversely domestic, letting Eliot tie his legs together while he worked on his stomach on his laptop on a paper until he got a little too squirmy and Eliot had to roll him over and just smother him with kisses, rub him off over his boxers while Quentin’s eyes rolled back in his head. Or when Eliot had tied this really cool harness across his chest and stomach and Quentin had liked the feeling of it holding him all over so much he’d asked Eliot to leave it on. Couldn’t let it go so quickly. So Quentin had ended up spending a Sunday brunch with a big old secret under an oversized sweater, Eliot winking at him over his mimosa.

And the marks after, crossing this way and that way over and around his body had lasted three days. Quentin, pleasantly sore in a way that only sex with  _ Eliot _ had ever left him.

He’d done enough research on anxiety to know that stimulating the sympathetic nervous system with touch and contact released all that hard fought dopamine and happy fun chemicals into his system. That his ADHD made his body crave input 24/7. Feeling Eliot’s ropes on him was just the same, like a touch that never drew away, all firm and carefully laid down with Eliot’s deft hands. And it ached after. Made Quentin’s head feel stuffed full of cotton seeing and feeling Eliot's touch on him after. Soothing and massaging, asking “How was that?” all quietly so he could file away Quentin’s reactions for later.

Not that Quentin really disliked  _ anything.  _ He didn’t really like being gagged in the beginning the time they’d tried it. But Eliot  _ had,  _ so clearly evident by the way he’d kept cooing at him, touching Quentin’s face right around where a short rope was wrapped around his head and clamped between his teeth. Quentin, somehow rock hard despite his mortification at all the drool and garbled sounds he made, had had all of his shape verbal barbs pruned away. And then he just hadn’t been able to talk at  _ all _ for like hours after the whole thing was over while Eliot brushed his hair and pushed back his cuticles.

It made sense that Eliot would make himself a master in  _ this.  _ Quentin had pretty firmly put down the idea of Eliot tying anyone  _ else _ up for the purposes of practice. The oily rumble of jealousy flashing through Quentin at the implication that  _ anyone else _ would get to have Eliot’s hands on them like this had made Eliot’s eyes go dark and wanting.  _ Well if you say so.  _

So Quentin was high key horny all the time from  _ practice _ and once again, a bit bitchy about not getting to really enjoy the fruits of Eliot’s labor because he was always  _ on to the next thing. _ Eliot’s interest in things manifested in his desire for  _ mastery _ over it. He wanted to know exactly what Quentin liked and didn’t like about each of the things they tried. 

He was kind of shocked that he had the patience in him to let Eliot even do this kind of stuff. Like the really complicated things that took an hour to rig up where Quentin couldn’t move at  _ all _ encased practically head to toe with his arms immobilized at his sides and his legs bound together. Quentin had ended up drooling into his pillow in his underwear while Eliot took  _ photos _ on his phone. Ostensibly to show his class the progress he’d made. And they didn’t show Quentin’s face, weren’t for public consumption.That hadn’t meant Quentin didn’t blush all the way down to his pinky toes whenever he thought about those photos, how Eliot had pushed him over onto his side so his erection was obscured by a shadow with a little smirk, _ “That’s just for me.” _

How he wanted to do that  _ more. _ And that it might be okay someday for his face to be in those pictures. Because at this point, he was a fucking magician. It wasn’t like this was going to ruin his political campaign. Yolo right?

He wanted  _ Eliot _ in pictures.

Quentin  _ really _ liked the leg thing Eliot had learned on kinky YouTube; ropes anchored around his waist, down under his hips, framing his crotch and trailing down each of his legs, crossing back over themselves in a diamond pattern, each foot tied to the headboard so that his whole lower body felt so heavy he thought he’d never move again. His dick pleasantly squashed against the comforter.

“See--comfy.” Eliot remarked, brushing his hands off as a sign of a job well done.

“Will you just leave it like this for a bit?” Quentin asked, eyes and  _ dick _ at half mast.

“I’ll do you one better.” Eliot climbed onto the bed, hands honing in on Quentin’s butt like he  _ couldn’t resist.  _ His hands curled into the ropes digging into his hips, tilting them. The tension redistributed beautifully, squeezing down his legs with a pleasant bruise ache. “You’re so patient with me. Can I put my mouth on you, would you like that?”

“Eliot so help me god, don’t tease me right now.” It would have been much more threatening if every word hadn’t been slurred around the edges. Arms free, Quentin scooped up a pillow and began shoving it under his hips, Eliot’s hands joining his own after a moment. And  _ wow _ with his hips hitched up like that pulling on the ropes framing his ass and thighs a bit more, he felt all spread out and  _ wanton. _

“Fuck, you look so good.” Eliot’s thumbs pressed down the crease of his cheeks, splitting him open to the room. “I wish you could see yourself, you got no right being so pretty down here too. I could do this all day.” His thumb pressed over his hole, rubbing there dry, and it was like smoke catching when trying to start a fire with flint and steel.

A wicked little thought flew into Quentin’s head and bypassed all checkpoints before flying out of his mouth, “You should leave me here like this.”

Eliot’s hands stopped moving. All the air went out of the room.

“Q?”

Quentin dropped his head into his hands and then forced himself to look back over his shoulder at Eliot, looking a bit concerned, but growing hard in his pants. “I mean--do whatever you want and then--um, the plug? You could go downstairs and I could  _ wait for you.  _ But like this?”

“Yeah--will you behave yourself for me if I’m gone?” Eliot asked, an eyebrow raised. “You know your not allowed to come like this unless I’m here. And you’re a crafty thing, I bet you’d figure out some way to get off.

“That depends I guess.” Quentin shrugged. “You know it's hard for me to be good for you when--with.”

“When you’re supposed to be a good kitten for me?” Eliot filled in. “The rest of the time you just go where I put you, but it’s hard when you can’t help yourself?”

Quentin nodded, rushing warmth pooling in his stomach. It was  _ nuts, _ negotiating this with his legs tied already to the bed, hardening against the cotton duvet, but also  _ incendiary. _ He had no leverage, and yet, all of it. “Yeah, leave me up here. It’ll be super hot, waiting for you to come back. Please?” 

“I need to know that you’re okay though.” Eliot said, looking around. “What about a little psychic link? For when I’m gone? I can check in on you that way. You’ll give me a color. But if you need me, think ‘Red’ and I’ll be up here in a minute. I’ll be right downstairs.”

“And the door’s locked.” Quentin hated how soft that came out, how hopeful.

“Yeah, baby. You’re mine.” Eliot leaned across his body to brush his hair away from his face. “Only I get to see you like this. Remember?”

“For now at least.” Quentin muttered mostly into his own elbow. That was for  _ much later,  _ but still.

“Putting the cart before the horse, Q.” Eliot chuckled, kissing his ear, the hollow right under it where his nerve endings were magnified. “You told me you _weren’t_ _creative_ when we started dating. What a little liar.”

Quentin grumbled something even he didn’t know into the bed. “So can we do it?”

Eliot hummed. “You won’t be bored?”

“Oh I’ll be  _ miserable.  _ Bored. I’ll just have to find ways to--er, entertain myself?” Quentin said through a sudden smile and lick of anticipation.

“Masochist.”

“Sadist.”

“Yes, but only in a fun way.” Eliot kissed playfully down his neck with great big smacking sounds. Quentin waggled against the bed. “What if I had a  _ surprise  _ for you?” Quentin waggled  _ more _ until Eliot dropped all of his weight onto Quentin, halting most of his eager jostling as all the air was forced from his lungs. Lanky fucker. “And I think it’ll keep you occupied. Hopefully put you in the right headspace to be  _ good _ for me  _ for once.” _

Quentin fought the urge to growl at him.

“Like a crossword puzzle?”

“You’re lucky I love you.” Eliot’s chest reverberated against Quentin’s back with his annoyed chuckle. “You’re supposed to be a brat when we’re in a  _ scene.  _ Clearly I need to discipline you more often.”

_ “Clearly.”  _ Quentin agreed, trying to press his hips up into Eliot’s. That wasn’t something he was going to pass up--ending up completely boneless and wrung out while Eliot took care of him after and rubbed aloe vera into his butt.

“I put in an order at the shop--”

“Your super exclusive Magician Sex Shop?”

“Exactly the one.” Eliot’s weight lifted up off of Quentin.  _ Don’t go. _ Quentin pushed himself up onto his elbows to watch Eliot cross to the closet--happy to see the line of Eliot thickening up in his trousers, that he was affected by what he did to Quentin--retrieving two boxes from the recesses of his closet that Quentin hadn’t noticed before. Though, Eliot’s closet was its own climate-controlled pocket dimension. Anything could pop out of it at any time. Feather boas. A full snow suit. The Hope Diamond.

“Gimme.” Quentin made grabby hands at the boxes, each one white with a red ribbon tied around it in a bow. He pulled uselessly against the ropes, unused to the feeling of the resistance tugging against his whole lower half. “Unless it’s sweaty latex clothes. I’m not into being covered in baby powder or oil right now.” 

Right now. What the fuck was his life?

“I can put these back--”

_ “No!”  _ Quentin fully pouted up at Eliot. He was really pushing his luck here, and would be happy enough just for Eliot to tie him up and leave him up here for a while to suffer a bit. But there were  _ boxes  _ in play now.

“Okay--you might change your tune about wanting me to tie you up. I won’t be mad if you do.” Eliot sat on the side of the bed. “Or if you don’t like it. Because it’s been a couple weeks and we haven’t really talked about cat stuff all that much and expectation verses reality being what it is--”

_ Cat stuff. _ Nothing really beyond Eliot calling him pet, kitten, and any other number of syrupy sweet nicknames that made Quentin feel the g-force of driving down a steep hill in the dead of night with the windows down. He  _ melted _ for it. Became so useless Eliot had to spell out what he wanted sometimes twice--three times--in a row when Quentin got all locked inside his head and floaty, when he pawed at Eliot desperately and headbutted his hands for attention. Really it was a miracle that either of them made it to class ever.

So if it was  _ cat stuff _ adjacent. It was gonna be  _ good. _

_ “Eliot-- _ stop.” Quentin dropped a hand onto Eliot’s knee. “I can’t be offended if I never know what’s in the box. And if  _ you _ picked it out--I’m probably gonna love it. Alright? I trust you.”

Eliot sighed. “Okay. I hope so, because it’s really  _ neat.”  _ He held out both boxes, “Big or small first? You’ll know what the other one is immediately, but a bitch loves suspense.”

“Big.” Quentin answered, fully perched up on his elbows, excitement churning in his stomach as Eliot slid the bow off the box and held it out to him expectantly down on one knee, fucking  _ Disney Prince  _ motherfucker. Quentin lifted the lid and the white tissue paper inside.  _ And the air left the fucking room. _

Because it was a tail, not only a  _ tail _ but a great big  _ fluffy  _ honey brown tail with flecks of gold in it, doubled over itself--it must have been a few feet  _ long-- _ and when Quentin couldn’t stop himself from running his fingers through it, he discovered it was just so  _ soft.  _ Like silk almost. Shiny, healthy looking fur. A few inches long. And it was  _ warm.  _ Which seemed--peculiar? Quentin could have sworn it  _ twitched _ under his hand when he dropped it down fully to pet over the fur. Goosebumps picked up all along the backs of his thighs in the open air. He felt it like a phantom touch, that fur brushing over him, over any little bit of exposed skin when he moved.

“Are you--Eliot. El. Honey. I’m--this is.  _ El.”  _ Quentin snapped his mouth closed. Took a breath. Dizzying excitement rattled through him at just how  _ perfect  _ it was resting in the box  _ attached to a metal plug. _ “Um. You should  _ untie me.  _ So I can hug you, I think.”

Eliot stood up and bent over him, Quentin hardly feeling the touch of his lips to his forehead before he scooted away to the end of the bed, easily undoing the ropes with a smooth smile on his face, rubbing his hands up and down the backs of Quentin’s legs, soothing away the indentations in his skin. Quentin rolled over onto his back the moment he was free, pulling the tail from the box, running the length of it between his hands.

“You like it--”

But he barely got the words out before Quentin grasped him by the vest and pulled him forward on top of him, arms and legs winding around Eliot’s back. The tail was a lump between them, tickling the underside of Quentin’s chin.

“Oh, I’m so weird and you’re very cool with that, huh?” Quentin squeezed Eliot as hard as he could.

“Well, you’re cool with my weird parts.” Eliot’s lips were pressed right to his ear. Ah yes, the thing where Eliot wanted to take notes on every one of Quentin’s sexual encounters so he could top them.  _ The Daddy thing. _ But that was for later. “You wanna know the best part?” he didn’t even wait for Quentin to beg to know. “There’s a pairing spell. Bonds with you so you’re the only one it’ll work with. It moves with you. Instinctively.”

Like a real tail. It wasn’t just Eliot’s weight that was making it hard to breathe.

“And the ears, they move too.”

Fuck--he’d forgotten about the  _ small box. _

“Fuck, I would have settled for something faux fur from Etsy.” Quentin smiled up at Eliot, pulling away to look down at him. If Eliot wasn’t careful, Quentin was likely to start leaking all over his pants, pulsing with possibility. “Magic is  _ amazing.” _

“I never want you to settle for  _ anything.” _ Eliot booped him on the nose. “I just want to spoil you as much as you deserve.  _ Plus it’s really fucking cool.” _

Quentin bit back on his first thought, and instead went with a breathless, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Eliot’s eyes narrowed down at him, catching some of the afternoon light spilling in through the curtains. What a glorious Saturday afternoon. “Who are you? What have you done with my Quentin? This is the part where you splutter and shake your head and insist--”

Quentin wiggled away from Eliot’s pokes and prods to access if he was the  _ real Quentin. _

“Nothing. I’m insisting on  _ nothing.  _ Except for what you said. Please just do what you want with me and take care of me and keep coming back to me whenever you want.”

“Oh--just that.” Eliot rolled off of Quentin and reached over, holding out the second box. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to leave you alone, looking so cute in these.”

They could have been  _ real  _ sitting in the box, two ears on a headband; of course, they matched the tail perfectly. The same golden brown with little tufts of white hair coming out of them, seashell pink inside, and peach fuzzy delicate edges.

“Can we do it now? Show me how they work.” Quentin twisted them around in his hands, looking over the front and back of the ears.

“Wait--just hold on a second.” Eliot dropped his hands over Quentin’s, stilling him. “Let me just set the scene here, okay?” Quentin nodded. “You have some rules. What are they?”

“I’m not allowed to touch myself without your permission. I use my safeword if I feel uncomfortable. I follow your orders. I have to use my words.”

“Yeah, I know it’s hard for you.” Eliot nodded, thumbs rocking over the backs of Quentin’s hands. He already feels a little woozy from everything. Usually shopping wasn’t a huge dopamine rush for him. Apparently rare books and sex toys were the exception. “But you have to try for me. So you’ll check in with me with words. You can use your traffic light system. Red for stop. Yellow for pause or slow down. Green for good. Alright?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Eliot repeated. “So I expect you to be on your best behavior for me. I know you have it in you. I’ll help you whenever you need me. You get this little furrow here--” Eliot took his thumb and stroked it down the line between Quentin’s eyebrows. “When you don’t get your way. And today isn’t about you, even if you’re pouting. It’s about me and what I want. Isn’t it?”

Quentin nodded silently.

“So you aren’t allowed to come without permission either. Regardless of how much you might think you might need it. I know you’ll tell me if you think you’re gonna break that rule. I’ll help you out.” Eliot said, not looking at  _ all _ sympathetic when Quentin let out a little whine, stomach coiling with warmth. Yeah, because  _ helping _ just meant Eliot taking his hands away or the tight curl of his hand at the base of Quentin’s dick until he felt like he’d explode like a can of biscuits with the wrapper half off. Always the most stressful part of cooking. “When we do this, you’re just here to keep me company and make me feel good. That’s what I want.”

“If that’s what you want, I mean you’re in charge. Use me however--” Quentin felt a little dumbstruck by this whole thing. “You know I like it, when you tell me what you want, when I do what you want me to. Even when I don’t think it’s what I want.” He’d somehow twisted that statement into  _ knots. _

Eliot said nothing, just floated the collar over into his hand from inside the top dresser drawer where it lived alongside Eliot’s pocket watches in a place of pride.

“Take off your shirt, Q. I wanna see you in just this.” Quentin nodded, shivering in the slight chill of the room after a windy, drizzly day at Brakebills. He threw his shirt off to the side, out of sight, sitting up so Eliot could guide the familiar band around his throat, fasten the buckle on the worn notch. “There you go. That’s perfect. You’re mine now.”

It was no surprise to either of them that a bright pink blush spilled over Quentin’s cheeks, down all the way to his chest and neck at the words, at the praise. Quentin swallowed against the familiar light pressure of the band, relishing the warming of the metal against his skin as he and the collar grew acclimated to each other.

“Turn over for me, baby. Still want to open you up myself.”

So at least Quentin could stick his head into a cave of his arms clasped over his head while Eliot methodically kissed his way down each of Quentin’s vertebrae, stopping right at his tailbone to murmur a few familiar words of their usual prep spells--minus the lube--so it was nothing but Eliot’s lips and tongue and spit working him open. Quentin’s thighs locked up, tense despite the way Eliot kept massaging his thumbs into his tight hamstrings, then teasing Quentin apart with those same sure hands so he had full access to whatever part of Quentin he wanted. Quentin couldn’t hold back his whimpers, the need to grind back as much as possible as Eliot’s tongue swirled around and around and then dipped  _ in _ when Quentin’s body finally went lax and he gave over to Eliot.

“You still sound so  _ shocked _ when I do this to you, kitten.” Eliot kissed across the back of his thigh, over to the other side, a finger dipping in to press wetly at his hole, testing its tension. “It’s so sweet, like you forget just how much you love it when I kiss your little hole. You’re opening up for me--I can see. You want me so badly don’t you?”

“I do.” Quentin nodded into the bed. “El--I love it. Your mouth--” he broke off as Eliot dove back in, tongue and fingers working in tandem to open him up little by little. Quentin flattened his chest to the bed, spine a hard arch, presenting himself to Eliot however he could. “Please--please it’s so good. More.”

He got  _ more.  _ Two fingers pressing in and out of him, stopping to curl in deep, rubbing against his prostate until Quentin sobbed and his hand flew back to smack Eliot’s away when the stimulation got to be too much. Eliot caught his hand easily, kissing over his palm and knuckles, holding it tightly.

“Come on, Q. Don’t be like that when I’m being so nice. Giving you what you want. You can take it--just a little more and then you’ll get your gifts.” Eliot released his hand with one final kiss, Quentin grasping onto the sleeve of his shirt as Eliot sat there between his knees, flirting a third finger around his rim on every thrust. “What do you say, when I’m giving you exactly what you want, opening up your sweet little ass for me?”

“Th-thank you.” Quentin stuttered out, eyes crushed closed so tightly he saw spots.

“That’s right.” Eliot agreed with a clever little twist of his wrist, his fingers curled expertly against his prostate. His thumb rubbed from the outside, Quentin’s legs shuddered against the bed as pleasure wracked him.

“El--”

Finally.  _ Thankfully.  _ Eliot patted him on the ass in goodbye as he floated the tail over. “Gonna use the good lube for this.” Eliot said. “I plan on keeping you all sweet for me all day.”

Quentin nodded into the duvet, eyes clenched closed in eager anticipation while Eliot got things ready. The  _ good _ thick lube that came in a container from the shop, not the stuff they conjured out of thin air. So if he wanted to, Eliot could fuck into him with a bit more smeared all over him like nothing. The plug slipped inside with little fanfare, a little chilly, but warming quickly after Eliot’s careful prep. Quentin clenched around the solid weight of it. There was no give, unlike Eliot’s dick, his other plug, or even his dildo. The tickle of the fur across his thighs was enough to have him almost trying to pull away at the sensation.

“Shh--” Eliot brushed the end of the tail over the back of his leg more firmly, all silky smooth and _soft._ Up across the back of his knee, the inside of his thigh. Everywhere tingling in its wake. “Give it a minute. The plug will link up with you on its own--it just takes a bit of time.”

“What--is it Bluetooth pairing with my butt?” Quentin groaned into the bed, earning a small tug on the tail that made his eyes cross as it pulled against his rim. Quentin clenched down in panic even if it hardly moved. “Hey!”

“Hush.” Eliot pushed Quentin’s legs back together, laid the tail down so it rested down the back of his thighs, all the way past his knees, down to his calves. So it was  _ true to scale _ then, he thought with a bit of pride. Quentin felt instinctive pride at knowing he wouldn't be tripping all over it. Not if his instincts took over. “I just want you to think about how good you felt when it was like this last time for you. No classes. No responsibilities. Nothing to worry about. Because I’m here and I’ll take care of everything.”

If Quentin could have climbed  _ inside _ those soft words, he would have. Opened the door immediately and called them home for a spell. But the sensation of the tail was too new, too exciting to just let himself feel when all Quentin could think about was how much  _ more  _ there was to it. He just felt jumpy with anticipation. Eliot kept him on his stomach for a few long minutes, petting across the back of his thighs and ass, spreading him absently just to get a look at him.

“I love that you’re already all furry for me.” Eliot mused, thumbs stroking the hair across the backs of his thighs and between his cheeks. Quentin squirmed against the bed, “I was just so _delighted_ that first time you wore short sleeves and your awful _cargo_ shorts. Your hairy arms and legs. I love that about boys--it's so masculine. But you’re still so soft for me. I imagined you were just so hairy _everywhere._ Feeling you against my face, everywhere.” Quentin bit the inside of his cheek, stopping himself from playfully snapping something like ‘shut up’ since Eliot knew he was touchy about how hairy he was. Covering his stomach with his hands absently whenever he was shirtless, tugging down the sleeves of his shirts over the backs of his hands. His endeavor into ‘manscaping’ the result of which was never to be repeated. “And you _were._ Even more than I expected, even here.” Two hands squeezed his butt in tandem and something _tugged_ inside Quentin.

An  _ awareness _ came to life, the tip of the tail twitching back and forth against his calf for a moment before it swept through the air with  _ swoosh _ in an annoyed arch, wapping Eliot in the chest and face with a thump that Quentin felt rocket through him.

“Oh--oh my god.” Quentin sputtered, rolling over onto his back to sit up, scooping up his  _ tail _ in his hands before it pulled back for round two. The tail was  _ alive _ in his hands, the part he wasn’t holding below, moving back and forth on its own, all puffed out in annoyance. “El--I’m so  _ sorry.” _

But Eliot was just kneeling next to him on the bed, hands still held in front of him, no longer touching Quentin, mouth half open and slipping into an  _ amused  _ expression.

“Oh,  _ kitten.”  _ Eliot rose up onto his knees fully, stroking Quentin’s hair just to give it a sharp pull. The tail yanked out of his hands and thumped down onto the bed, twitching back and forth between his legs. “I know you can't help it. How temperamental you are. It’s okay. It’s  _ cute.” _

Quentin screwed his mouth up tight, the heat of his cheeks  _ burning _ through the rest of his body despite the chill in the room that had him drawing his arms around himself.

“You’re cold.” Eliot said. He switched to rubbing his hands up and down the outside of Quentin’s arms, bringing some warmth to his skin. “Let’s put these on too and while they’re kicking in, I’ll go grab you something to put on for me.”

Quentin nodded, body all locked up suddenly apart from the tail, stroking over his calf over and over.

Eliot went through his sweaters and brought over a big caramel cable knit sweater with a V-neck that was roomy, slipping over his collarbones and doing nothing but  _ displaying _ the leather around his throat. The sleeves pooled at the wrists when Eliot helped him into it. It was so warm _ ,  _ a soft haze of fluff coming off the material, Quentin expected it to be itchy but it wasn’t. Eliot took the headband and Quentin clasped his hands in his lap to stop himself from just grabbing the thing and jamming it on himself. He hardly noticed the soft pressure of the headband as it came to rest on his scalp, Eliot fixing his hair so that it wouldn’t show. 

“There. There you are. Just missing one thing.” Eliot smiled warmly. “Nearly there. I’m going to go borrow something from Margo. Color?”

Quentin’s breath caught in his throat from the implication he didn’t  _ get _ to know ahead of time. It could be anything. Know Margo, something soft and girly.

“Green. You could--leave the door open a bit.” Quentin’s shoulders hunched up to his ears. “If you’re just leaving for a minute?”

“You’ll be okay?”

“I’m fine.” Quentin nodded.

“Alright then. Be good.” Eliot stood up from the bed, dropping a quick kiss to the top of Quentin’s head, hand squeezing the back of his neck in goodbye. Eliot walked to the door and stopped, “I’m going to leave this open a bit. I’ll close it when I come back. No one should have any reason to come up if you’re being quiet and not drawing attention to yourself.”

Quentin nodded, clamping his mouth shut, drawing his knees up to his chest at the head of the bed. 

“Okay,” Eliot said with a little chuckle, fond. “I’ll be right back then.”

Eliot, having the attic room, had  _ two _ doors to his bedroom in reality, one at the bottom of the stairs with a beaded curtain and the other at the top. Quentin insisted they locked both of them whenever they had sex, that the wards canceled out all sound so there was no  _ chance  _ of Kady shouting at him the next morning for having obnoxiously loud sex. True to his word, Eliot left the door at the top of the stairs cracked a few inches. Quentin listened to his practiced march down the steps, the creak of the handrail, the metal of the handle when he turned it and headed out on to the second floor landing.

Quentin sat there on the bed, practically shaking in his effort to keep still, be good.  _ Wait  _ for Eliot to come back. Who knew if he even bothered to close to the bottom door at all if he was just popping over to Margo’s room?

Cautiously, he sat up on his knees and scooted down the bed, towards the wrought iron footboard, wrapping his hands around the metal. He jumped at the feeling of the tail curling around to the front on it’s own, twitching by his knee absently.

_ What could he be doing down there for so long? _

Quentin sighed to himself, picking up the tail in his hands, petting it absently.

“No, I’m in total agreement, Bambi.” Eliot’s voice carried up the stairs. He could picture Eliot, leaning against the doorframe, filling the space with a hand up against it. “We should go next weekend. London--take the Chunnel to Paris. I’m sure Q would love to find himself a little bookshop somewhere along the way.”

“I’m not spending my weekend in a  _ bookshop.  _ We’re at least doing some major clubbing, I don’t care what your boyfriend says.” Margo sneered. The sound of a drawer snapping closed sounded.

Quentin sighed to himself, totally eavesdropping as one minute easily turned into five while Eliot and Margo chatted like Quentin wasn’t upstairs  _ waiting. _

Finally, he’d had enough.

“Hey--El! Could you give me a hand with something.” Quentin called down the stairs, trying to sound casual.

There was a long pause, then finally.

“Duty calls.”

Quentin could almost  _ hear _ the eye roll in Eliot’s voice, his chagrined tone. He kissed Margo on the cheek, feet sounding on the carpet. Finally the door at the bottom of the steps clicked closed and then before he knew it, Eliot appeared in the doorway with  _ something _ in his hands and a narrowed gaze. Instantly, Quentin wanted to crawl to him and stick his face in Eliot’s stomach and endear himself to the other man so much that he wouldn’t be in  _ trouble.  _ Which he so clearly  _ was. _

“What? I missed you?” Quentin tried for apologetic.

“Hands and knees, Q.” Eliot shook his head, closing the other door with a snap and a wave, throwing the lock. “Here I was thinking you were  _ so worried _ someone might catch you like this.”

Quentin pouted, watching as Eliot draped the longest socks Quentin had ever seen over the end of the bed and called the rope from earlier to his hand with nothing but a thought. “If I yelled for you and it had been anyone  _ else  _ who came up here _ ,  _ then we have a whole other problem.”

Eliot pointed at the foot of the bed. “Am I going to have to repeat myself?”

Tail swishing against the covers, agitated, Quentin plopped onto his hands and knees, expecting Eliot to have him reach his arms back to bind his wrists to his ankles. Instead, Eliot began anchoring the rope around the top of one of his thighs, then grasped his tail and lashed it to his leg as well, keeping the rope loose enough that it didn’t bite into his skin at all. Quentin was so dumbstruck about the whole thing, he couldn’t bring himself to utter a word until Eliot tapped him on the butt, the tail tied all the way down his leg to his calf where he could feel just the last inch or so trembling against his skin like a wounded animal.

Eliot crossed to the chair by the closet, sat down, patting his leg expectantly.

“Come over here now, over my knee.”

Absolute white hot  _ disbelief  _ rocketed through him. At the idea that Eliot had actually tied up his  _ tail _ so it wouldn’t get in the way of his punishment. A lump in his throat built all of a sudden at not having it anymore, not feeling its movement apart that little rabbit heart tremble at the very end.

“I just wanted you to come back.” Quentin said, aware of just how  _ small _ it came out.

“I understand.” Eliot said, calmly. “I’m back now. Come here.”

Why the fuck did he have to say things that were so  _ reasonable? _

The space between them might as well have been as wide as the Grand Canyon instead of just a few feet of their bedroom floor, scattered with loose cushions and a few empty wine bottles.

It took Quentin a while to get moving, even when Eliot crossed his arms over his chest and looked at him expectantly. Feeling eerily broken open by such a simple thing, not getting what he wanted. Not being able to move about the way he needed.

Jesus, was he gonna cry just because Eliot took his tail away? 

It wasn’t a matter of if it was  _ going to _ cry any longer, it was  _ happening.  _ And still, Eliot sat there waiting for him as he scooted off the bed, rope pulling at his thigh as it tensed with his movement. His hands curled into the sleeves of the sweater, pulling them over his palms to cushion the bite of his nails. Eliot didn’t make him crawl, thank  _ God. _ But Quentin almost wanted to, it befitted just how silly and vulnerable he felt. 

“Come on, Q. It’s not so bad. Don’t be dramatic.” Eliot chided him, once he finally laid himself across Eliot’s lap. His toes touching down on the ground. It felt sort of like his organs were going to permanently get squashed. Eliot patted the back of Quentin’s thighs where the sweater ended. “Think you just need to get some of this energy out and then you’ll be all calm and sweet for me, yeah?”

Quentin nodded despite himself, blood flowing directly to his head where it hung down towards the ground, he would a hand around Eliot’s ankle for stability out of habit, having found himself in this position before. Though, usually as a reward for good behavior. The end result was all the same--a big dopey smile on his face and weak muscles like he’d run a marathon. Gatorade.

“You need to know you're mine, I think.” Eliot mused to himself aloud. Quentin longed to pull up his hands and check that the soundproofing on the room still stood firm. “This will be a good reminder for when I have errands to run downstairs later. Won’t it?”

Quentin nodded, face mashed into Eliot’s trousers.

Eliot’s hands halted rubbing his thighs to pinch the back of one sharply. Quentin hissed, “Ouch! Yes, it  _ will.” _

“You answer me when I ask you a question, Kitten. I need to know you understand me.” Eliot pulled up on the sweater, exposing Quentin’s ass to the room. His legs tensed, shaking and tight with anticipation. “It’s okay. It’s cute that you miss me so much you don’t know what to do with yourself. I’ll tell you a little secret _ \--I miss you just as much.” _

“Yeah?” And if they could both ignore the wobble in his voice or the sniffle that happened after, that would be  _ great. _

“Of course.” Eliot stroked the backs of his fingers along the ropes criss-crossing over his thigh. “Now once this is over, we’re back to square one. Everything is forgiven. So just be a good boy for me and cry if you gotta. That’s alright too. Whatever you need to do. But this needs to happen.”

“Are--the wards are up, right?”

Eliot stilled, “They are. I know you don’t want anyone else to hear you getting a spanking, do you?”

“N-no.” Quentin clasped Eliot’s leg tighter. That kind of embarrassment,  _ real _ and gut-punching was so different when it belonged to anyone other than Eliot. Made him want to just disappear forever rather than curl himself up and tuck himself into Eliot’s side.

Quentin would have liked to be able to say he somehow made it through his spanking with a stiff upper lip and several quippy comebacks of the ‘my grandma hits harder than that, and she’s dead’ variety but it  _ just didn’t happen.  _ No, Quentin crumbled to dust like  _ nothing _ at the first strike of Eliot’s hand across his backside, not that it was even that  _ hard.  _ And the fact that Eliot was giving it to him easy made him feel  _ worse. _ He was a delicate, helpless pet who couldn’t handle Eliot leaving him alone for longer than a few minutes  _ or _ spanking him without blubbering about it. Evidence suggested  _ both were very true. _

And regardless of the fact that it was embarrassing and fucking painful being turned over Eliot’s knee, Eliot must have been able to feel Quentin getting harder against his lap at the friction when his hips rolled to get away _ and _ the stinging pain that somehow crossed wires in his brain with pleasure. Eliot’s hand clamped down on the back of his thigh, stopping his small movements. Eliot could do whatever he wanted to him like this, easily stronger and not panting with every breath. It took nothing for him to tilt Quentin’s hips, reach between his legs and pull his dick back between his straining thighs.

“So you're not tempted to just hump my leg.” He told Quentin casually, wrapping a broad hand around Quentin’s dick to give it a couple perfunctory strokes before his long, nimble fingers coiled around his balls right where they hung down from his body and gave a little squeeze.

Quentin howled, the tips of his toes kicking up off the ground so he was awkwardly balanced on Eliot’s lap making this sound like he was dying. Eliot clicked his tongue at him, “If you get this worked up just from this, the rest of today’s gonna be a real trial, huh?”

“Y-yes. Green.” Quentin squeaked out.

“Take a breath.” Eliot’s hand left his balls alone, rubbing into the marks on his thighs while the other began stroking his back in long, sweeping touches all the way from his neck to his ass. Slowly the tension began to melt away, his feet dropped back down to the floor and he felt a fat blob of precome run down the back of his leg from where it was positioned out of the way. “You take this beautifully for me. Your sounds. Your hard little dick. How you squirm in anticipation for me. It’s lovely. Such a good pet.”

“Really?” Quentin was pretty sure the word was totally garbled, what with his mouth basically stuffed full of Eliot’s pant leg.

“Of course. You’re perfect for me. My perfect boy. You want more?”

Quentin sniffed and then really did bite down on Eliot’s pant leg so he couldn’t say anything terribly wobbly like how he was so lucky to have such a good  _ Sir _ er--Eliot.

He nodded, and that seemed  _ okay _ enough for right now.

Eliot talked him through the whole thing after that, shushing Quentin and encouraging him on little breaks as Eliot’s gentle fingertips brushed lightly over his aching skin and Quentin sobbed into his pant leg. The pain was relentless, beginning as bright flashes, stinging across the surface of his skin. But as they went on and on, it grew to a dull thudding that seemed to spread across his entire body, melting into his marrow until every little bit of him felt like it was burning up. His body bearing down on the plug inside him that jolted with every strike, kissing up against his prostate and then retreating quickly thereafter. His dick blush-hot and twitching against the back of his leg, there for Eliot to look at and comment on whenever he wanted. Quentin felt like he was right there on the cusp of orgasm or something  _ more _ \--a great big enveloping syrupy haze filling him up with every strike of Eliot’s hand against his ass, the backs of his thighs.

“When this is all over, I’ll make sure you get to see yourself.” Eliot said, both hands massaging his sore cheeks. Quentin’s feet lifted off the floor and kicked futility only to have Eliot’s hand push them back down to the floor like it was  _ nothing.  _ “Let me touch you, Q. You’ll be all flushed and tender for me all day I think. You love it.”

Quentin whined, both of his arms clutching Eliot’s leg like a lifeline to his chest, the material of his pants wet and a little snotty from where he kept rubbing his face into it with hiccuping breaths.

It went on like that for a while until Quentin burned down into a spluttering little flame, Eliot’s glass walls the only thing stopping him from being snuffed out. He couldn’t make any words, anything more than the odd high pitched whimper as Eliot’s hands drew blood to the surface of his skin, tingling everywhere. His toes wouldn’t stop flexing. Quentin lost himself to the rhythm of blood pumping through him and such an appreciation for Eliot and his  _ magical  _ hands, how he gave Quentin this over and over while he just laid there all sorts of delirious.

Working now on the backs of his thighs, Eliot gave him a firm strike, the crack of it echoing through the room--though Quentin’s body--rippling outwards.

_ “El--”  _ Quentin moaned, long and drawn out. Ankles crossed, thighs clenched so hard they were aching until it broke and he went  _ boneless _ back across Eliot’s lap, tears trailing down into his hair, mouth open on a broken sound. Dimly aware of Eliot’s hands, spreading his ass cheeks to look at him and he couldn’t stop twitching, clenching down on the plug over and over as Eliot’s finger stroked over his sensitive rim. 

The backs of his thighs warm and slick and he  _ didn’t _ get it.

Why Eliot’s hands were just holding him open and there was no sound but a ringing in his ears and his own low vocalized moans with every breath.

“Kitten--” Eliot’s voice cut through the haze in his brain, the half-awake feeling in his body. “You  _ came _ .” 

Quentin shook his head against Eliot’s leg, “No. S’not. I didn’t.” His voice came out cracked around the edges, barely holding together. That wasn’t  _ possible. _

“You  _ did.”  _ Eliot insisted. A couple fingers swiped over the back of his legs and were dropped into his field of vision. “Look at what you did.”

Sure enough, Eliot’s fingers were coated in come.

“I came.” Quentin repeated dumbly, snatching that hand to jam Eliot’s fingers into his mouth, moaning all over them. Like if he could taste it, he’d know it was real.

Eliot gave him one last spank with his free hand, Quentin yowled and spat the fingers back out, kicking at the sharp pain cutting through the honey slow ooey gooey center of him.

“Color?”

“Green.”

Eliot sighed. “Go lay down on the floor here, on those cushions. On your stomach.” He helped Quentin down onto his shaky hands and knees at least. Quentin hazily crawled a couple feet before collapsing onto a little nest of cushions he hadn’t noticed earlier. His whole body felt alive and  _ hollow _ somehow. Like a mason jar full of lightning bugs batting futility against the glass walls, all lit up.

He felt Eliot's gaze on him as he stood from the chair and calmly walked to the bathroom, leaving the door open so Quentin could watch his feet, the darker purple patch of his trousers where Quentin had cried. He wanted to say something, apologize, but the words wouldn’t come. There was nothing he could do but just  _ wait _ for Eliot to come back. It was impossible to pick himself back up and move. The water ran and then Eliot walked back into the room, sitting himself down on top of Quentin’s thighs. He ran a cool, wet cloth over his tacky skin where the come was drying, tutting to himself as he did so.

“I think you just can’t help yourself.” Eliot said, tossing the cloth away. Quentin buried his face further into the pillows so only the back of his neck, all red with embarrassment showed. “You weren’t allowed to come until I told you and look at you. Left to your own devices you’d wring yourself dry, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Later, he’d realize that Eliot summoned aloe vera to his hand from the bedside table, but like this, Quentin could do nothing but hiss in surprise as Eliot rubbed shockingly cool gel into his backside, taking care of him despite the fact that he’d been bad, broken one of his rules. He was good--so good to Quentin. It made things  _ worse _ and better somehow. He didn’t deserve it. But there Eliot was with aloe and sure touches that stirred up sunburn memories and broke Quentin open.

“Well, I’m not going to let you touch me again until I think you’ve learned your lesson, how’s that?”

Quentin’s lower lip quivered, “I’m  _ sorry.” _

How was he going to  _ show _ Eliot how much he meant when the words went away if he couldn’t--

“That’s obvious.” Eliot said with a scoff. “Are you sorry because you broke a rule or because you aren’t gonna get what you want?”

“Because--” Quentin wracked his brain. “Because. I didn’t mean to? I didn’t know I could.”

Eliot’s hands paused in their massaging the gel into his backside and thighs. The aloe tingeled and cooled as it soaked into his skin, tempering the heat and ache. Eliot let out a considering sound. “I  _ suppose  _ that’s understandable. Seems like your body just took what it wanted, huh? You can’t help it--poor thing. I should know better not to spoil you like this.”

“Mmmhmm.” Quentin’s eyelids grew heavy.

“Well, you don’t get to just take what you want.” Eliot rose to his feet and went to wash his hands in the sink. Quentin didn’t move so much as a muscle. “I know how much you love sucking dick for me, but that’s not what I want from you now.” Eliot spoke so casually in the bathroom, voice pinging off the tile. “I’m going to catch up on some reading and you’re going to keep me warm in that mouth of yours. You’re gonna be useful.”

Quentin’s stomach  _ dropped _ and his eyes flickered open, squinting up at Eliot from his prone position on the floor, watery around the edges.

“You’re annoyed.” The corner of Eliot’s mouth ticked up, dimpling. “Your little ears are all folded back like I just threw water on you.”

Quentin scowled and shook his head, sniffling. Charming.

“Come on. Up with you.” Eliot stooped down and muttered something under his breath, before easily turning Quentin over onto his back and scooping him up into his arms, his weight probably halved. Quentin clung to Eliot’s broad chest, hands curled in his vest and shirt, head nuzzling in close. Knowing it wasn’t  _ allowed.  _ Still smiling to himself when Eliot didn’t mention it and just deposited him gently on the bed, Quentin hissing at the pressure on his ass, radiating soreness down up legs and up his back. “We’ll get this undone, and I’ll finish dressing you up so you aren’t chilly up here. And then we’ll see about how you can make up for your bad behavior earlier.”

Quentin sat up on his elbows, doing nothing to help as Eliot unbound his leg and freed his tail at last, dodging it as fur swished through the air and it landed on the bed with a thump, close to Quentin’s body like it didn’t trust Eliot not to grab hold of it again.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Eliot smirked down at him, throwing the rope over at the chair. He called the socks to his hands with a thought and silently took Quentin’s foot in hand, drawing the soft knit material all the way up his leg past the knee. They were lavender and  _ really  _ warm. Quentin remembered seeing Margo wear them along with a purple miniskirt and brown boots a few weeks beforehand. “Cute. Warm enough?”

“They’re warm.” Quentin chewed on his thumbnail.

“Do you want to keep going?” Eliot asked, his hand stroking up and down Quentin’s thigh methodically up to where the socks or stockings or whatever girls called them ended. Quentin’s heart fluttered.

“I do--yes.” He wanted to make it right for Eliot. Show him he’d made the right choice--choosing Quentin. When he could have anyone. Giving him everything.

So Eliot hopped up on the bed, up against the headboard and patted the space between his legs, calling Quentin over silently. Quentin followed, eyes tracking Eliot’s hand unzipping his pants, drawing his dick from his boxer briefs, thumbing back his foreskin while Quentin was made to rest his head on Eliot’s thigh, watching from mere inches away. So hard and  _ big _ and angry red for him. Quentin wanted to know the shape of the fat head pressing into his lips, over his tongue, feel Eliot pulse and twitch. Mouth watering. Hands curled into fists by his chest to stop himself from  _ touching. _

“You’re just going to keep me nice and warm in that perfect mouth of yours, kitten. That’s all. Don’t try to get me off. That’s not what this is about. You aren’t allowed to touch me while this is happening either. I just want this mouth.” Eliot wove a spell with his words, thumbing Quentin’s lips open to welcome the salty taste of precome on his tongue. “Tell me you want it.”

“I want it.”

“Say please.”

And he must have been  _ really _ out of it because he just said, “Please.”

“Alright. Drop your jaw sweetheart, I’ll guide you.”

And so Quentin did.

\--------

He couldn’t be certain how much time passed. It wasn’t long before the heavy weight of Eliot across his tongue made Quentin’s eyes roll back into his head and he melted fully into the duvet, aware of nothing but the soft ache in his jaw and Eliot’s hand occasionally dropping down from his book to pet his hair over and over. Occasionally gifting him a gentle squeeze to the back of the neck with a, “That’s great. You’re doing so well, kitten.” and Quentin moaned around him, aware that it just caused more drool to slip past his lips, wicking into Eliot’s ruined trousers. 

Time just fell completely away as Quentin lost himself, trying to open further, press his forehead into the heat of Eliot’s stomach through his clothes. _ Keep me here. _ Eliot scritched behind the magicked ears, sending a shiver down his spine and he longed to  _ arch,  _ feel his joints pop. Hummed around Eliot, his eyes slipped open instead.

Catching a glimpse of Eliot in the sunlight of his room, picking out hidden chestnut curls in glossy blackbrown hair and seaglass eyes and the  _ fond,  _ soft curl of his smile aimed down at Quentin, his book long abandoned at his hip.

“You’ve done so  _ well _ for me, baby. I want to come now.” The low timber of Eliot’s voice rattled down his body, prickled tears in Quentin’s eyes because he  _ wanted it _ so badly. “I’ll move you how I want you. Just take it, alright?”

Quentin hummed, eyes falling closed, tail making lazy sweeps back and forth across the backs of Quentin’s legs, finally settling wrapped around Eliot’s ankle as the other man took Quentin’s face in his hands and gently guided him up and down on his dick. Opening up like a flower to the sun. Going where Eliot went. However. Whenever. Eliot moaned as Quentin sucked and swirled his tongue around whatever Eliot would give him. Eliot grew harder in his mouth after so long with Quentin just holding him there.

The wet, squelching sounds of Quentin’s mouth filled the room as Eliot took what he wanted, petting his thumbs over Quentin’s cheeks, pressing in to feel himself inside. He kept making these, rough grunts and sounds of pleasure that rippled right through him.

When Eliot finally came, he drew Quentin far enough off that the flood of briney fluid that filled his mouth didn’t send him into a coughing fit. Quentin swallowed around him, hands clutching at the bedding. He panted against Eliot’s thigh after, shipwrecked and trying to get his bearings. While Eliot recovered. While he petted Quentin’s hair and then stuck two fingers in his mouth like he  _ knew _ that’s just what Quentin wanted. And Quentin  _ trembled _ against this nebulous swirling of emotion inside of him, trying to keep a still as he could now that he didn’t have something to do..

“Come up here, cutie.” Eliot’s fingers in his mouth coaxed Quentin’s face upwards. He drew his fingers out, holding Quentin under the chin. “You take everything I give you so well. I’m so proud of you for giving me exactly what I want. I know it must have been hard for you to control this mouth. When there’s nothing you love more than getting down on your knees for me, my sweet little cocksucker.” Nuzzling down into the hand under his messy chin, Quentin let out a whimper. All full of apprehension, despite Eliot’s filthy praise. Skittish he’d touch Eliot or do the wrong thing. Get in trouble again. He closed his eyes against Eliot’s relaxed gaze, his fingers curling under Quentin’s chin to scratch lightly. His tail flitted here and there, unable to rest for longer than a moment.

“Did you get hard?” Eliot asked curiously, both eyebrows raising gently.

Quentin shook his head softly. 

“Why do I find that so painfully endearing, huh? Let’s not get into that.” Eliot mused more to himself than to Quentin.

It hadn’t--that wasn’t what was  _ supposed _ to happen was it? His body had been there, obviously. But he hadn’t felt like he was anything other than just for Eliot’s use. Unable to touch him. Just being useful, something wet and warm to get off with. And that just made him lightheaded and blushy.

“What’s got you so bashful all of a sudden?” Eliot asked. Quentin shook his head, forehead dropping to Eliot’s clothed thigh again. “Must be really good if it’s making you blush. I can only  _ imagine,  _ baby. What with all those little thoughts flitting around this beautiful brain.” he tapped Quentin’s temple gentle twice. “Will you come up and see me?”

Quentin peered one eye out at Eliot. If he  _ could have, he _ would have taken that hand, wrapped it around his throat, stuck his face into Eliot’s stomach with a whine. And then Eliot would  _ know _ how much he wanted him, needed him but he couldn’t. Couldn’t even move.

“Alright, clearly I have to do  _ everything.”  _ Eliot’s hands scooped Quentin under the armpits and pulled him up the bed, Quentin unable to do anything to help, totally dead weight. “What’s wrong, baby?” he asked when Quentin was settled up on Eliot’s lap, knees on either side of Eliot’s hips, hands held up close under his chin out of the way. Quentin shook with the effort to  _ not touch.  _ Be good. Even if his tail violated that and thumped against Eliot’s legs before finally curling around Quentin, resting along his side in a comforting weight.

Lips feeling bruised, drool cooling on his face and down his neck, Quentin couldn’t face Eliot with his softly tilted head, the dropping line of his mouth. His furrowed brows.

“I--” Quentin tried to conjure up words for the multitude of feelings inside him. “I can’t--” He jumped as Eliot’s hands dropped onto his thighs, warming them with his palms. It didn’t feel  _ right,  _ this coiling slick feeling of worry settling in his stomach. That his molars hurt from clamping his mouth shut.

“Q. Baby--”

“Yellow.” Quentin dropped his face into his hands, words coming at him like a tidal wave before Eliot could even say  _ anything-- “I just.  _ I don’t know what I can d-do. Or say. And I’m not allowed to--t-to touch you. So I feel like, like like--I don’t know how to tell you what-- I’m sorry, this is stupid. I’m  _ fine.” _

Eliot’s hands took him gently by the shoulders and pulled Quentin in closer, into his chest, where he could lay his head on Eliot’s shoulder and not look at  _ anything  _ like ever again. His hands rubbed Quentin’s back up and down over the sweater. “Do you want to keep going?” Eliot asked softly. He knew, he  _ knew _ that Eliot wouldn’t be upset if he didn’t. Quentin nodded into Eliot’s shoulder, sniffling into the material. “Alright. What can I do for you? What do you need from me?”

“It’s  _ hard. _ ” Quentin’s voice muffled in Eliot’s clothing. Eliot squeezed him tighter. “I just feel like way more uh fragile? No--vulnerable. I can’t not touch you--I can’t. When it’s like this. It’s too much to ask. If you do that, you gotta take it away, like tie me up or something. I wouldn’t have to worry about it then. I can at least  _ try _ to move. Because words are h-hard like this? And if I can’t show you and I can’t talk it’s just a lot? And I know that like I’m not good all the time or whatever, but could you be nicer, er? Softer? Not that I’m telling you what to do--”

Eliot’s hand cupped the back of his head, the other arm curling around his waist, drawing him in closer to his body. So much so that Quentin felt the words leaving Eliot’s lips, through the rumble of his chest and the current of air across his neck, ears twitching.

“Of  _ course,  _ I can do that. Kitten, you’re my  _ treasure.”  _ Tears spiked in Quentin’s eyes at the words. “And you chose me to take care of you. So if that’s what you need--I’ll give it to you. Of course I will.”

“Okay.” Quentin whimpered, totally crying, embarrassed with relief. “I don’t know why I’m like this.”

“You’re perfect.” Eliot said. “I should know it's so hard for you when you’re like this to be anything but sweet and needy for me, when you’re nothing but my kitten. It’s too much to ask not to touch. Too much responsibility, huh?”

“It’s too much, yeah.” Quentin blubbered. “You have to take it away if you don’t want me to. Doesn’t feel right if I’m just not allowed. When you tie me up it's like you’re still holding me?”

“What about not being allowed to touch yourself, or to come without permission? Is that too much?” Eliot asked.

Quentin shook his head. “N-no. That’s different. That feels right. I c-can still show you what I need. You’re there. You’ll take care of me.”

“Okay.” Eliot agreed, nodding. “I’m very proud of you for telling me and for using your safeword. That like--sometimes subs,” Eliot coughed and recalibrated, “people are afraid to use their safeword sometimes. Thank you for trusting me. I won’t tell you not to touch me again, okay?”

“That doesn't mean you can’t still tie me up though.” Quentin insisted, trying to sound reasonable for a guy in a tail, ears and women’s thigh-high socks that were  _ incredibly _ comfortable. They were basically just sweatpants without the butt part. He pulled away from Eliot’s shoulder to make this point, needing to look him in the eye so Eliot knew he was  _ serious. _

“Right. Of course not.” Eliot chuckled, kissing him on the cheek, then the other. Quentin’s eyes drifted closed. “I know you’re attached to this whole kitten thing--but you’re also my little rope bunny.”

Quentin dissolved with an embarrassed snort. Because  _ accurate. _ But he wasn’t about to trade in a really fucking cool tail for a little cotton fluff ball. And Julia’s childhood rabbit had bitten him on four separate occasions.

Eliot’s arms enveloped him then, pulling him into his chest. Eliot rubbed his back soothingly, his hand dipping under the sweater to rub between his shoulder blades and down to the small of his back. Quentin’s sore hands unclenched and gripped Eliot’s sides finally. The tension in his spine drifted away until the only thing keeping him upright was Eliot’s hand on the back of his head, petting his hair.

Quentin’s stomach growled between then moments later. Quentin let out a watery chuckle, pulling away from Eliot’s neck with a sniff. He was not above blowing his nose when Eliot got him a tissue. Face all puffy, eyes sore, Quentin hopefully asked, “Will you--will you get us a snack?”

Eliot nodded quietly, tucking Quentin’s hair back behind an ear for him. His eyes caught the midday sun pouring through the curtains of the attic room.

“I’ll do one better, it’s nearly 2 P.M. It’s time for  _ lunch.”  _ Eliot playfully squeezed Quentin’s waist. “Gotta feed this boy before you start gnawing on me.”

Quentin blushed, shrugging. “You can go, I think. I’ll be okay up here.”

“You’re sure? Because I can just order Todd to do it,” Eliot said, not joking.

“It’s fine. Look. I haven’t cried in like five minutes. You could do the psychic link if you want before you go. I kinda need a breather.”

Eliot nodded, explaining the link as his hands moved. It was simple enough. Effectively a mental walkie talkie for small phrases. Eliot set it for their safe words so if he thought one repeatedly, it would go off on Eliot’s side. Quentin watched him leave, closing the door behind him once he’d zipped his pants back up and done a quick refresh spell on his clothes so they didn’t smell of sweat and sex.

Free to explore the room alone, Quentin made his way to the bathroom on shaky legs to wash his face and use the facilities. He couldn’t help but smile to himself at the feeling of the tail swishing against the back of his legs with every movement, the weight and stretch of the plug inside of him while he washed his hands in the sink, finally looking at himself in the mirror above the sink.

The ears--they were  _ cute. _ There was no other word for them. They twitched under scrutiny and cocked towards the sound of a door opening down the hall to the one of the other rooms on the second floor. Quentin on the other hand, looked a bit wrung out. His face still splotchy from crying, lips puffy from use even if he hadn’t done much else than hold Eliot’s dick in his mouth for what might have been an  _ hour. _

The full length mirror in the bedroom was another story. The sight of the tail peeking out from under his sweater, curling absently around an ankle while he stood there somewhat pigeon-toed, chewing on his thumbnail sent a visceral thrill through him. Curiously, he turned away from the mirror and looked over his shoulder, drawing the bottom of the sweater, up over his still aching ass to observe the great big slapped-red blotches of color over his ass and thighs. The sight of the tail emerging from between his cheeks was such a riveting sight, it drew a slightly hysterical chuckle out of Quentin. He clamped the sweater back down around his thighs, a little bit of his dick poking out the bottom, soft and vulnerable. It made him squeeze his thighs together and then scampter back to the bed as he heard Eliot’s footsteps.

“Look at you. Were you good while I was gone?” Eliot paused in the door, half open for a long moment, a tray balanced in his arms.

“Yeah.” Quentin nodded, staring at the open door, that no one else in the Cottage was this lucky. To have Eliot standing there with grilled cheese and tomato soup. Smiling until the crinkles around his eyes appeared. No one else got to feel like Quentin did in that moment, capable of bobbing up against the ceiling via non-magical means.

“Floor picnic?” Eliot asked.

Quentin was already crawling off the bed, down onto the nest of cushions from before, making himself a nuisance of sticking his nose into the skin of Eliot’s neck when he deposited the tray onto the ground. “Aww, did you miss me, sweet thing?” Eliot asked with an accompanying hand on the back of his neck, scratching at the base of his skull. In what probably could have been described as a ‘gentle tackle’ Quentin dropped his full weight into Eliot, knocking him down into the pillows with an  _ “Oof”  _ as Quentin followed him down, skin buzzing across his whole body, tail curling around Eliot’s ankle. “There’s my good boy. I’m so proud of you for not getting into any kind of trouble while I was gone.”

Nodding frantically into Eliot’s chest, Quentin continued scooting down until his face was right there in Eliot’s belly, his body curled around itself in the cradle of Eliot’s legs on the floor. Mouth watering, Quentin dropped his face onto Eliot’s stomach where his smell was the strongest, where he could feel the bulge of him--even soft--against his neck and collarbone. He hummed, eyes falling closed despite his growling stomach.

Eliot gave him  _ long _ moments down there, one hand scratching behind the ears atop his head, the movement under Quentin’s head and the sounds of chewing relayed that Eliot was methodically eating his sandwich with the other hand, breaking off a few pieces here and there and offering them down to Quentin with encouragement.

He pouted the whole way but eventually Eliot coaxed Quentin up into his lap to actually eat his own lunch. Grilled cheese with brie, bacon, and raspberry preserves. Quentin ate every bit of it from Eliot’s fingertips while his own hands jammed up under Eliot’s carefully tucked in shirt until they met warm, soft skin. Content only when his fingertips curled into the light dusting of hair across his midsection. Eliot tutted at him gently over the last bite of the sandwich, Quentin licking the buttery crumbs off Eliot’s thumb, but there was no heat to it. He just resigned himself to feeding Quentin the tomato soup with measured spoonfuls and breaks to drink cold lemonade.

Dabbing his face with a napkin, Eliot guided Quentin down onto the pillows on the floor, sun-warm in a shaft of light from the window.

“Just close your eyes for me for a bit.” Eliot brushed his hair back from Quentin’s face while he yawned and curled up on the floor.

Quentin’s eyes slipped closed easily, the weight of his body pulling him into the floor, all full and content after lunch with Eliot’s hands all over him, feeding him. He vaguely noticed the air shift as Eliot stood up from the ground and softly made his way across the room, puttering around with things here and there.

And it was to those comforting sounds of home that Quentin drifted off to sleep, the insides of his eyelids a blazing red from sunlight, hands tucked up under his chin, and his tail curled around him, twitching occasionally.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I love reading and responding to comments, so feel free to reach out!


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